National School Sports Week
Did you know that it was National School Sports week from the 19th-25th June?
Don’t worry if you missed it (things have been very busy for all schools this year), it’s not too late to run your own School Sports Week, it's a great way to promote Sport, Physical Activity and a Healthy Lifestyle to your children, parents and teachers and it can go a long way in to creating, adopting and maintain a healthy culture within school.
After last week’s announcement that the PE and School Sports Premium Fund will be rolled over and renewed for 2021/2022, it is also a great way to celebrate!
Schools have been celebrating Sports Week since the initiative was rolled out by the Youth Sports Trust in 2008, with each year having its own theme to help the celebrations. This year, after a year of disruption and isolation the theme is Together Again. Providing all involved with the opportunity not only to be active but also to start the covid response and recovery by celebrating the return of sport and the easing of many restrictions.
Each year the Youth Sports Trust will provide you with some ideas for activities with some accompanying resources to help with the running of the week. The timetable for this week included:
- Monday: Pause to Play Taking time out each day to be active and to enjoy physical activity and sport.
- Tuesday: Football Day The European Championships are up and running, with England, Wales and Scotland all taking part in the group stages, it’s a great chance to engage your school with your own football competitions.
- Wednesday: Olympic Day The Olympics start on 23rd July – a great way to raise awareness is to host your own Olympic Games, giving the children the opportunity to try some new, fun and engaging activities, it may create new interests in sport for your less-active pupils.
- Thursday: Sports Day Why not run your school sports day as part of school sports week!
- Friday: THANK YOU! A great opportunity to thank all the people that have helped us throughout this year and to consider the emotions that we have been through as part of a wellbeing day!
You can find out more about National School Sports Week on the Youth Sports Trust Website.
HOW WE CAN HELP:
We have a huge library of resources that will help you get your children active all year round, but they will also definitely support your delivery of Sports Week or help you create a healthy culture in school.
We offer a fully inclusive PE Curriculum complete with Lesson Plans, Video Resources, Differentiation ideas and Progression Plans for your children. These lessons can help you to deliver Outstanding PE and School Sport and many provide great ideas to include competition and festivals as part of regular practice. Ideal to support the delivery of YST Football Day and Olympic Day.
We provide Movement Skills Videos that can support the development of an active curriculum in school. These short videos provide the children with activities that will support with the mastery of Running, Jumping, Throwing and Catching skills. These activities can be done as part of PE lessons or refocus activities and many of them don’t need a lot of space. Ideal to support the delivery of YST Pause to Play day.
We also have a range of Dance and Yoga Activities that can be used in the same way to ensure that children are remaining active all year round and our Mindfulness activities and ever growing PSHE curriculum will allow schools to support the emotional development of their children.
Our PE and Healthy Schools Portal are the perfect way to help support your school, all year round, not only do they provide schools with such a huge range of activities and resources but it can also support your Teachers CPD and is effective use of your School Sports Premium Fund. To find out more about this service, please contact us at support@amaven.co.uk or check out our website for more information, we can even arrange a free demonstration for you.
BONUS RESOURCE:
As part of School Sports Week, it is recommended that Schools Run a Football Day for their school. This will hopefully lead to increased participation as many children that may not currently be playing may be inspired by the current European Championships.
We think this is a great idea and schools could even use cross curricular links to talk about some of the current issues around the sport – e.g. Why are players kneeling before each game?
Sometimes, however, Football in class can prove to be overly competitive or difficult to differentiate with, when playing games. There is a way to play a semi-competitive competition that ensures that all children are actively engaged and team work is promoted throughout – and it is very easy to run.
The Amaven Total Football Competition document is above, and will provide you with a marking sheet to keep track of your competition, it is very simple to run with the organisation detailed below.
Why not give it a go? We hope you and your children enjoy it!
Keep an eye on our blog over the next few weeks, we will provide some Olympic Resources that you can use in the final few weeks of term.
AMAVEN TOTAL FOOTBALL COMPETITION
- Ideally Set Up 4 pitches on the school field. 20 yards wide by 30 yards long and using cones. Use mini goals, poles or cones to mark out the goals.
- Give every child in the class a number by using the marking sheet provided. To help with differentiation, we recommend running two separate competitions simultaneously. Pitches 1 and 2 could be used for children that regularly play football and gifted and talented children, whereas pitches 3 and 4 maybe used for children that are non-footballers or children that may need some additional support.
- Children will play a 4 minute 4v4 game.
- Children to self-referee to aid with their development in leading activity.
- Every child in the team gets 3 points if they win, 2 points for a draw, 1 point for a loss.
- Teachers can give “Magic Points” for good skill, fair play, good teamwork, good behaviour and hard work.
- Mix the teams using the marking sheet to support you.
- Play another 4v4 game and repeat the process.
- Play as many games as you can in the time you have available. You should find that all children support each other especially when magic points are used correctly. Although every child is scoring points for themselves this format increases teamwork without allowing one team to dominate and focusing too heavily on scores!
If you don’t have exact numbers, don’t worry, it's not an exact science, the children will be changing teams regularly so games that may be 4v3 can work well and can add an additional challenge to some of the pupils.
Want to become a better Athlete?
Our Sports Apps below can help
Improve Fitness and Develop Sports Skills
The Total Sport App allows children to access fun and exciting activities that will help improve fitness, develop sports skills and increase confidence.
- Develop Fundamental Movement Skills, such as Agility, Balance and Coordination
- Learn new sports skills, dance and yoga
- Improve overall wellbeing and fitness
- Understand emotional wellbeing
The Total Sport App is completely branded to you school and fully maintained by us. We provide new drills each week to improve Speed, Strength, Power, Agility and Endurance, and provide long-term support for parents and players via training session developed by our experienced team of experts
Stength and Conditioning Platform for Clubs and Academies
Our Total S&C platform helps coaches to deliver a LTAD and S&C programme efficiently to a large number of athletes across all age groups playing different sports.
Our Strength & Conditioning platform consists of a Portal for the coaching team, enabling them to modify training sessions, monitor players training history, input test results and identify players who are sports ready. The athletes are provided their own S&C Player App which allows them to take control of their own training, self-test, log exercise history and track progress.
We get athletes sport ready. We reduce overuse injuries and burn out. We help to develop independent and healthy athletes.
- Automated session generator saves time
- Monitor athlete adherence and progress
- Online management portal for coaches
- Training App for all athletes
- Testing and profiling to identify sport readiness
The Total Football App, is designed to support players of all ages and skill levels. It is the only Football Coaching App that integrates 5 phases of skill acquisition and long-term athletic development, meaning that all sessions and activities are designed to meet your current skill level whether you are just starting out, or are an experienced academy player. All our turning sessions are designed by UEFA Qualified Coaches and are supported by further sessions in:
Ensuring that players aren’t just practicing but are practicing with the highest quality. We also have a range of physical development practices, healthy lifestyle sessions, and psychological tips to help develop the total footballer. If your child needs help developing their turning, or any part of their game, you can try the app for free now!
