Oxfordshire School Games: a new direction of travel
Posted: Thu, 31 Mar 2022 14:01
Oxfordshire School Games: a new direction
As part of Sport England's Uniting the Movement strategy, there has been a shift from providing investment to deliver national programmes to more place-based working. The guiding principle will be investing in those that need it most, to tackle the deep-rooted inequalities that exist in sport and physical activity.
As a result, Active Oxfordshire and School Games Organisers have taken steps to review and adapt the traditional offers, so that School Games events can help to tackle these inequalities going forwards. Some traditional sports competitions will no longer take place with the focus now on increasing resource for children at the greatest risk of inactivity.
Children and Young People Manager Stephanie Hall shares her excitement for the new direction and explains the latest Stress Buster Day:
"I am really looking forward to developing the School Games moving forwards and seeing how we can use it as a vehicle to fight inactivity and tackle inequalities. It has been great seeing students who wouldn't normally be involved attending events and experiencing how physical activity can be a big contributor to good mental wellbeing.
A great example of our new direction of travel was our Key Stage 4 Stress Buster Day which took place in March 2022. From one simple statistic that "92% of children aged 15-16 experienced exam stress", Sport in Mind, School Games Organisers and Active Oxfordshire co-created an event which saw students in years 10 and 11 engage in a carousel of informative workshops. The aim was to equip the students with the skills and confidence to manage stress during the revision/exams period and use physical activity and other techniques as coping mechanisms.
The Stress Buster Day was a huge success, with students really buzzing after taking part. We'd like to thank Project PT for delivering the healthy eating workshop, Dr Sarah Gilchrist for delivering the importance of sleep workshop, Oxfordshire Mind for delivering exam stress coping techniques workshop and Sport in Mind for delivering a workshop on how being active can improve your mental wellbeing, featuring the giant inflatable assault course!
The real proof of success will be around whether what they learnt actually helps them during the exam season and we will be doing some evaluating with the students and teachers in September to get this insight."
With the new direction of Oxfordshire School Games underway, you can find out more here about what is on offer in the county: https://www.activeoxfordshire.org/school-games/