A group of people playing netball on a playground

Active Schools

Active Schools is one of eight themes which underpins Yorkshire Sport Foundation’s vision and strategy.

The vision is to connect, influence and support education settings and local stakeholders, and put physical activity at the heart of their policy and practice. This means every child builds a positive relationship with movement, laying the foundation for an active life.

Children and young people School Games

To do this we will:

Support partner organisations to tackle inequalities that provide barriers to young people accessing sport and physical activity. 
Connect with and influence local policy makers and education settings to raise awareness of the benefits of physical activity. This will develop their understanding of how it can support whole school improvement and the wider holistic outcomes for children and young people.
Share learning and approaches to PE, sport and physical activity between education settings across the region.
Support the development of positive experiences for children and young people from early years to further and higher education.
Help to create opportunities for young people to achieve the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines of 30 active minutes in school every day and 30 active minutes outside of school.
Work with local providers to ensure their offer is informed by holistic development approaches, current guidance and the latest research in relation to PE, sport and physical activity.
Support the development of the PE teaching and coaching workforce through national qualification pathways.

Areas of Work

The Creating Active Schools Framework (CAS) was developed by an independent group of experts from public health, education, sport and local authorities to promote a whole systems approach to school improvement. Formulated in June 2019, the framework supports senior leaders to embed activity at the heart of school ethos and policy, to create a culture which supports increased physical activity behaviours and more sustainable opportunities for pupils to be physically active before, during and beyond the school day.

The online Creating Active Schools Improvement Tool is supporting schools to profile their PE, Sport and physical activity provision, action plan for change, access high quality CPD and monitor and evaluate their progress.

Each academic year, we work with local partners to design and deliver a district PE conference like this one in Kirklees in 2024

These events facilitate headteachers, PE leads, wellbeing teams and professionals working in education to come together and explore strategies to enhance their PE, sport and physical activity provision as well as the opportunity to network with likeminded colleagues.

Yorkshire Sport Foundation is a course centre for the Level 4, 5 and 6 national PE Qualifications. These courses are delivered at least once each academic year in partnership with Leeds Beckett University and take place at the new Carnegie School of Sport building in Headingley, Leeds.

Collectively, these are all nationally recognised qualifications that aim to upskill primary school teachers and higher level teaching assistants to:

Improve the overall delivery of the physical education curriculum within primary schools.
To understand how to lead on the delivery of the primary school physical education curriculum

The credits gained for each of these courses can be used by learners to access higher education courses at university.

Through the PE and Sport Premium fund, the Government invests over £300m per year directly into primary schools with the objective of achieving self-sustaining improvement in the quality of PE and sport.

There is a long term vision that all pupils leave primary school physically literate and with the knowledge, skills and motivation necessary to equip them for a healthy lifestyle and lifelong participation in movement, physical activity and sport.

As a national lottery funded charity, Yorkshire Sport Foundation is partner neutral and therefore in the perfect position to offer advice and guidance to schools on how to effectively spend their PE and Sport Premium and ensure a positive impact on these outcomes:

the engagement of all pupils in regular physical activity – the Chief Medical Officer guidelines recommend that all children and young people aged five to 18 engage in at least 60 minutes of physical activity a day, of which 30 minutes should be in school
the profile of PE and sport is raised across the school as a tool for whole-school improvement
increased confidence, knowledge and skills of all staff in teaching PE and sport
broader experience of a range of movement, physical activity and sport offered to all pupils
increased participation in competitive sport.