Active Schools Programmes and Initiatives
Extra-Curricular Opportunities
We aim to provide more and higher quality opportunities for pupils to take part in sport and physical activity before school, during lunchtimes, after school and weekends.
These opportunities are based at specific cluster primary and high schools for pupils at that school, local leisure facilities or community venues. One of our key roles is to recruit volunteers to deliver these opportunities.
Festivals, Events and Competitions
The Active Schools team hold a wide variety of cluster and Border-wide festivals, events and competitions over the academic school year.
These festivals include primary hockey, rugby and disability multi-sport opportunities. Competitions include small and large schools netball, kwik cricket, small and large schools basketball, Sportshall athletics and primary athletics opportunities.
Secondary events include football and netball leagues, athletics and disability athletics pentathlon.
We work in close partnership with our Primary and Secondary PE colleagues to ensure our young people have as many quality opportunities as possible available to them.
School to Club Links
We work in partnership with local community sports clubs to provide pathways so children can enjoy life-long participation. It allows children to try new activities and feel more comfortable in a club setting, with the ideal outcome that they continue to participate in that sport for a period of time. Our Sports Development colleagues also play a part in creating and strengthening these links too.
School Sport Award
The sportscotland School Sport Award is a national, lottery funded initiative designed to encourage schools to continuously improve physical education and school sport opportunities.
The award encourages schools to self-reflect and continuously improve during the academic year. The programme also puts young people at the forefront of the decision making and planning of PE and sport in their school.
Working towards the award will also help schools to increase young people’s opportunities and engagement in PE and school sport, putting these opportunities at the heart of their planning.
Once applications have been completed the school can then recognise and celebrate success through PE and other school sport models.
Young Leader Academy
We recognise the importance of young people leading, coaching and officiating in sport. We feel there is a need to specifically target talented young people with a passion and energy for leading in a variety of different sports.
The Active Schools team has devised the Young Leader Academy with a view to investing in aspiring young people as coaches and officials now and in the future. We aim to offer courses, certificates, and the continued support for young people to make a real difference across school sport, community sport and wider physical activity.
Young Ambassadors
The YA programme is a key element of sportscotland’s contribution to developing young people as leaders in sport. Each year two pupils from every Scottish secondary school can be selected as YAs to promote sport and motivate and inspire other young people to get involved in sport in their schools, clubs and local communities. YAs have the opportunity to attend a national conference in order to provide understanding of the role.
At the heart of the YA programme is the principle that their views, and those of other young people, are heard, valued and influence decision making; and that they are engaged in driving change. As role models and leaders for other young people, YAs can have a pivotal role within their school and communities. A YA has two key roles:
- To promote sport, and motivate and inspire other young people to get involved in sport in a wide range of settings, including schools, clubs and local communities;
- To influence six key aspects of school sport:
- extra-curricular sport provision
- links to community sport opportunities
- opportunities for competition
- celebration of pupil achievements in sport
- leadership opportunities for young people
- PE in schools
Fit For Girls Ambassadors
Fit for Girls is a national programme developed in partnership between sportscotland and the Youth Sport Trust. It aims to increase girls’ engagement and enjoyment in PE, physical activity and sport. It seeks to enable girls to take part in ways that suits them best, as well as aiming to build positive relationships between adults and girls and between the girls themselves. Key principles of Fit for Girls are:
- Valuing girls’ voices
- Promoting peer role models
- Co-creating projects
- Celebrating ‘Unstoppable Girls’
Once selected, FFG Ambassadors will attend a workshop designed to inspire and empower them to create local change in their school, clubs and communities. The ambassadors will learn how to develop an action plan to address the barriers to participation in sport and physical activity. The workshop will help ambassadors identify why and how to consult with other girls to get more girls engaged in sport and physical activity, as well as promote good news stories developed to inspire other girls to get involved in sport and physical activity.
Sports Leadership
Our Sports Leadership programmes run in conjunction with Leadership Skills Foundation and our secondary schools. The courses are a journey to gain employability skills that improve the ability to communicate and work with others, build self-esteem and confidence, problem solve and improve skills needed to manage work and personal development. This enables successful learners to lead safe, purposeful and enjoyable sport/physical activity, with indirect supervision.
Holiday Activity Camps
We offer holiday activity camps during Easter and Summer in all nine of our cluster areas. These opportunities cater for Primary 1 to Primary 7 pupils and offer a wide range of fun sport and physical activity filled days during our holiday periods. Ensuring our young people are more active, more often outside of school too