True Innovation with Primary PE Sport Premium Funding
Visiting schools to deliver active learning sessions across the country has to be one of the highlights for Tagtiv8. Working with staff and children reminds us about why we became involved in teaching in the first place. Last half term, we were invited by Richard Allman, Specialist Teacher of PE & Leader of PE & Sports Development at Malton Community Primary School to visit his school to see something very special indeed – where their innovative use of Primary PE Sport Premium Funding is proving to be a wonderful investment.
What’s Going On?
We arrived just after lunch to find six Year 6 Sport/PE Ambassadors confidently setting up three stations in the school hall for the carousel of activities they were due to deliver to a class of Year 1 children. They were eager to explain the format of the weekly one hour sessions. This week’s activities involved:
- Guess My Number;
- Capture the Tag;
- Nike Training App on the ipad minis being used as interactive tools for developing FUNdamental movement skills.
The first two activities featured resources from the Tagtiv8 Number programme, the latter of which would incorporate Scooter Boards to help children move and randomly generate numbers with which to work. The school had bought the Scooter Boards as they are fun and engaging resources that enable younger children to develop pushing and pulling movements using their upper body.
Prior to the carousel of activities beginning, it was great to see all 30 Year 1 children engaged and focused in a Go Noodle warm-up, minus any teacher input whatsoever.
Replete in their distinctive orange ‘Station Leader’ t-shirts, sponsored by the ‘Sweaty Church’, Lucy, Casey and Matthew were keen to explain that they had to apply for the posts of Sports Ambassadors before the selection process began. Richard explained further: “Upper KS2 children are invited to apply for positions of responsibility within the school’s ‘pupil leadership team’. Once they have read job descriptions and completed application forms they must then prepare for and attend an interview with senior school leaders. Providing opportunities for children to gain confidence and competence from these responsibilities is an essential aspect of preparing them for the transition into the next phase of their education.”
Looking at the session diagrams, it was obvious that Richard facilitates the planning, with the children helping to devise the sessions. The leaders are given a frame/scaffold within which they can lead and create sessions, as Lucy was keen to point out: “We choose the workout.”
What is the Impact of the Investment?
As to the impact on the Year 6 children, it was clear that it’s not simply a case of giving out stickers. According to Lucy, “We learn leadership skills and try out things we wouldn’t normally do.”
Watching Kyle deliver the ‘Grab the Tag’ activity, sometimes on his own Scooter Board to maintain eye contact, was akin to watching a motivational surf boarder. The PE/Sport Ambassador role has certainly helped him grow as a leader:
- “It has helped me become more confident in giving instructions.”
- “I get to ask the younger children questions that help them develop their Maths skills.”
The benefits to the Year 1 children were seen in their engagement with the activities and the way they responded to their older peers. According to Year 1 pupils, Evie and Scarlett:
- “We were active – we were learning too. It was good mixing Maths and PE.”
- “It’s better to learn with older children because they’re good at sport.”
- “They are closer in age to us so they know how we feel.”
Who Else Benefits from the Investment?
It wasn’t just the Year 1 pupils who were benefitting. Their teacher, Beth Chaplin, was keen to point out that it was a subtle but effective form of CPD for her, up-skilling her with new ideas. Richard was keen to explain that: “CPD for staff is a key investment that the school has made with their Sports Premium Funding. From April 2017, class teachers will access weekly specific PE CPD each week through planning and teaching collaboratively alongside a PE specialist with their own class.”
The active learning wasn’t just taking place in the school hall. On the corridor leading to the EYFS classes, the Year 5 PE/Sport Apprentices were delivering active maths sessions of their own, this time with small groups of children from the Reception class. Richard explained: “Children leading these sessions do so voluntarily each Friday afternoon as part of their University of Life activities. University of Life involves vertical groups of children working together as innovators and entrepreneurs; applying skills from foundation subjects towards projects that support the school and wider community.”
Working with Richard, the Year 5 Apprentices have developed a model for planning active learning, which they then ask the teachers to drop in the mathematical learning objective (e.g. adding one more or working out one less etc). This is yet another example of scaffolding the children with a versatile set of activity frames that allows them to create and lead successfully from within.
With Richard’s input, the Year 5 children led mathematical activities involving hoops, bean bags, Bochia, Football phonics and New Age Kurling. During these activities, counting skills were expertly modelled with genuine encouragement and praise.
Go On – Try Some Investment of Your Own
We get to visit many schools and sometimes it is apparent that some schools are simply employing teams of sport coaches to deliver sessions in order to cover PPA, more often than not with no CPD for teachers. To these schools and others, I urge you to consider innovative models such as the ones developed at Malton Community Primary School. Get ahead of the game before accurate tools for tracking Primary PE & Sport Premium Funding come into being.
Developing active learning across the school is just one of the approaches that Malton Community Primary School adopt to support in getting more of their children, more active, more often.
To find out the latest news from Malton Community Primary School, check out their Twitter feed, @maltonprimary
To talk further about the approaches used at the school, contact Richard Allman at: r.allman@maltonprimary.org