Developing our pupils - secondary

Action Planning

Set up your school sport committee 

Tips for school leads: 

Get buy in 

  • Raise the profile of the School Sport Award with leaders in the school, pupils, your Active Schools Coordinator, parents, carers, and partners. The more people that know about the work the school sport committee are going to be doing, do the better. Work together to take small steps to make big change.  
  • Identify champions to help buy in. Raise the School Sport Award with the Parent Council. 
  • Determine if there is already a school sport committee that can lead on the School Sport Award, if not, are there already groups of young people set up that would complement the work in school sport? 
  •  Parents, carers, teachers, and school staff want the best for young people and individually (and collectively) have the power to create a school where they can thrive. Understand what drives each person and ensure that your team represents the diversity of your school. Are there any gaps in representation?  

Develop your school sport committee 

  • Create an inclusive and supportive environment.  
  • Think about creating a team charter, what are the young people’s expectations? The charter should reflect the rights in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of The Child (UNCRC). 
  • How many young people should be involved? Your committee should represent different year groups and reflect the diversity within the school 
  • If there is already a school sport committee set up, think about retaining some members who can serve as peer mentors  
  • The committee isn’t just for those young people who already play sport, representation should include those with a passion and a confidence for change, and those who are able to represent the diversity of the school 

Meetings

  • Time is always limited, so be flexible with meeting options. Don’t meet too often or too little! Aim for a schedule that allows time between meetings for actions to be developed. Every school and committee will be different but aim to meet at least 4 times a year. 
  • Create a safe and welcoming environment, smiling and eye contact goes a long way 😊 
  • Use an agenda template and provide a start and finish time 
  • Think about how to include the young people, as well as listening to their thoughts and views, encourage them to keep minutes and take/send/prepare meeting notes 
  • Use your action plan to track your progress 

Complete your self-assessment 

  • As a committee, the first thing you want to do is complete the School Sport Award self-assessment 
  • Decide if you want to do the whole assessment at one time or complete a couple of sections at a time. You cans save as you go 
  • The self-assessment results will help the committee decide which areas they want to improve on within their action plan. 
  • Revisit your self-assessment once actions have been completed, amend your answers and update your scores 

Create an action plan 

  • It is not mandatory to use the areas you scored weakest in – it is entirely up to the committee to decide 
  • The actions can be as big or as small as you want them to be 
  • Think about areas for improvement, development and maintaining 
  • Create a digital area for sharing such as Google classrooms The School Sport Award allows you to download your assessment results and any action plans that have been created, pop these onto the sharing site so they can be accessible at time that suits everyone 
  • How many actions should we choose for each section? It’s up to the committee but try to be specific about the length of time it will take for each action. Your action planning should be a working document 
  • If an action is still outstanding, you can still submit for an award, just update to show how you have started to implement the change 
  • Make sure the actions show clear goals and/or outcomes 
  • Review the action plan throughout the year, check where you have completed actions and update. Don’t worry if actions haven’t been completed, think about if you can still achieve them and if not, agree reasons for not achieving them and set new actions! 
  • SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely 
  • Celebrate completing actions, this will help engage the committee further 

Promote your school sport committee 

  • Create a board in an area of the school where the committee members can be displayed. Share their charter and action planning. 
  • Display their names and pictures, year groups and quotes from them. Get the committee to draw themselves and share their favourite sports. 

Date published: 24 July 2023
Date updated: 24 July 2023

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