School Sport and Funding
School Games Award
Whitehall Junior School achieved the Gold School Games Award for 2023-2024.
The School Games Mark is a Government-led award scheme launched in 2012, facilitated by the Youth Sport Trust to reward and recognise school’s engagement (provision and uptake) in the School Games against a national benchmark and to celebrate keeping young people active, and we are delighted to have been recognised for our success.
We are extremely proud of our pupils for their dedication to all aspects of physical activity and school sport, including those young volunteers, leaders and officials who made our events possible. We are committed to using the School Games to try and engage those young people who haven’t previously been active or represented our school and to try and ensure that all our students have a positive experience and want to try out new activities beyond school too in our community. We believe in the power of physical activity and school sport as a school and give opportunities to those young people that need it most, either as a participant, leader, official or volunteer.
As part of our application, we were asked to fulfil criteria in the areas linked to the five School Games outcomes, and we are pleased that the hard work of everyone at our school has been rewarded.
Physical Literacy
Physical literacy is the ability to move with competence and confidence in a wide variety of physical activities and environments. It involves the development of fundamental movement and sports skills that allow individuals to participate in physical activity and sport throughout their life. Physical literacy also includes the skills and attributes that individuals demonstrate through physical, emotional, social and cognitive learning.
At Whitehall Junior school, all school staff (and our external providers of extra-curricular clubs) are fully aware of the importance of physical literacy, and we actively embed this into our daily practice.
Our 'Competition Intent' at Whitehall
Intra-school and inter-school competitions are exploited at Whitehall Junior School as we believe in providing all of our pupils with positive participation experiences. Below we have outlined how each of our planned competitions across an academic year has one, or more, clearly defined intent:
- Develop confidence and competence within physical activity/sport skills.
- Increased regular participation and motivation.
- Improved knowledge and understanding of sport and physical activity.
- Build social skills and connections.
- Championing physical literacy.
- Improving health and well-being.
- Engaging new/target groups of young people.
- Provide inclusive opportunities.
- Create positive experiences.
- Promote success and achievement.
- Support transition.
- Develop leadership, character, life skills.
- Championing youth engagement.
- To engage/influence wider stakeholders.
Commonwealth Games 2022
At Whitehall Junior School, we will continue to use the power and inspiration of the 2022 Commonwealth Games to inspire our pupils in the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle and developing a life-long love of sport. We will achieve this through assemblies, PE lessons, intra-school competitions and through extra-curricular activities, through referencing the following ethos these games provided:
- Motto: Games for everyone.
- Humanity, equality and destiny in everything we do.
- Kind hearts and never quitters.
- Friendly games.
PE Lessons
At Whitehall Junior School, we view Physical Education as an extremely important part of the National Curriculum. All children are timetabled with two hours of PE every week. These sessions include both indoor and outdoor PE lessons. Throughout the academic year, children complete three dance and three gymnastics units through indoor sessions. Outdoor PE lessons provide children with the opportunity to take part in a range of invasive team games and individual sports, as well as athletics. Our PE lessons teach the children the skills needed to be successful in a range of sports. Every PE unit provides the children with the opportunity to practise the skills learnt in competitive scenarios. Our inclusive PE curriculum allows all children to develop communication, teamwork and leadership skills in a healthy, competitive environment.
Sports Coaches
Sports coaches are a vital part of Physical Education and sport at Whitehall Junior School. They are deployed in a range of capacities to ensure children receive high quality teaching in both PE lessons and extra-curricular sports clubs. The sports clubs at Whitehall Junior School are delivered by fully qualified coaches. On a weekly basis, the coaches provide regular training sessions for a wide range of sports and physical activities. We have had great feedback from the children who are currently attending these clubs, and it has been great to see them benefit from these wider opportunities. Our sports coaches are also utilised during lunchtimes. Every child has the opportunity to be physically active by taking part in games led by our coaches at lunchtime (as well as our trained sports ambassadors). This year we are continuing to work with Super Star Sports coaches. Our dedicated PE coordinator, who has worked alongside trained sports coaches for a number of years, will work alongside our teachers throughout the year to develop their PE teaching skills; this will involve team-teaching and observation sessions to ensure our teachers continue to deliver high quality PE lessons.
Squad Training
As well as the clubs run by external sports coaches, a number of Whitehall staff also give up their free time to deliver squad training sessions. From these squad training sessions, children have the opportunity to represent Whitehall in a range of inter-school competitions. These competitions consist of leagues where matches take place on a weekly basis and knock-out tournaments.
Swimming
At Whitehall, we see swimming not only as a great way to stay healthy and active, but as a fundamental life skill. To help prepare children for life outside the classroom, we have continued to provide Year 5 with regular swimming lessons throughout the year. By introducing swimming lessons at an earlier age, we hope to see an increase in the number of children who can swim 25m by the time they leave in Year 6.
Intra-school (level 1) competitions 2024-25
At Whitehall, we exploit intra-school competitions through:
- PE lessons
- Play leaders at lunchtime
- Trained pupil sport leaders leading play leader tasks at play time and lunchtime
- Skip2bfit Challenges
- Whole school intra-sports competitions
- Sports day
- Health and Fitness Week