Cotswold School Sports Partnership - What We Do

Sports leadership

We have been running a successful Junior Sports Leaders Award accredited to Sports UK for the last five years.

KS4 pupils study skills in coaching, organisation, child management, officiating and safety procedures, during lesson time. They then volunteer their time to help with the many inter school primary events such as officiating at Sports Hall Athletics, refereeing tag rugby, marshalling cross country, umpiring high five netball, judging at athletics and hosting the KS1 Toplink multi skills festival. Our young people are always superb ambassadors for the school showing maturity, patience and ownership of each task undertaken.

Pupils also get the opportunity to work toward the Junior Football Official Award developed by the FA and the Netball Organisers Award. This involves learning how to teach skills, visiting local primary schools to coach and hosting a tournament. The school has a dedicated group of Games Captains in Year 11 who help within the PE faculty, assisting with kit, organising teams and helping with clubs.

In our family of primary schools, all Year 6 pupils have the chance to gain the Young Leader Award. They are guided towards leading playground games, assisting with clubs and helping with events such as KS1 Sports days. It is hoped that pupils in every year group are able to lead activities such as ‘Wake and Shake’ - a daily 5 minute fitness routine and lesson warm ups regularly.

Inter school competition

Like most schools, Deer Park has a busy fixture list for many traditional games throughout the year. Most are played within the Cirencester and Stroud District and we often have representation at Regional level. The Sports Partnership has enabled more competition to take place, which in turn gives more children the chance to represent the school. New events that have been introduced include golf, table tennis, trampolining, handball, freeball, badminton and swimming.

The primary schools also have a wide range of festivals and tournaments, particularly for KS2, including tag rugby, boys and girls football, District and Area cross country and athletics, swimming, gymnastics and dance. Sports hall athletics, high 5 netball and kwik cricket are also played between Partnership clusters and regionally.

Many National Governing Bodies -such as the English Cricket Board, the Football Association, England Netball, and the RFU - are beginning to take a more active role in school sport and supporting the progression from school level through to national championships.

Gifted and Talented

In line with the school policy for Gifted and Talented pupils, the PE faculty have a programme for those showing considerable potential in Sport. These pupils are identified by showing their sporting talent through 5 strands: physical, social, psychological, creative and cognitive.

Years 7, 8 and 9 are invited to workshops with G & T pupils from the other schools in the Partnership. We are also being supported by Sky Sports 'Living for Sport' programme and hopefully we will receive a visit from an Olympian to mentor pupils.

It is hoped that G & T students will follow the correct pathways to achieving county, regional and national success. We currently have students excelling in hockey, netball, football, rugby, cross country and athletics at District/County level. We also have regional representatives in cross country, athletics, rowing, sailing, wake boarding, BMX.

Any pupil who has a particular sporting success story that we are unaware of, please contact the school.

Extreme Sports

Over the last 3 years we have benefitted from Big Lottery Funding which specifically focused on ‘extreme sports’. This has enabled staff to train to become instructors in some of the less traditional sports; gain tuition from experienced coaches; provide equipment and therefore create more versatile opportunities for pupils.

We have managed to sustain Boxercise for KS4 pupils, climbed at The Warehouse Climbing Centre in Gloucester and experienced a season of wakeboarding at South Cerney. Our most recent adventure is climbing at Wild Rock a new facility in Northleach. We have also begun a fencing club this term thanks to the expertise of one of our own staff.

Linking with local sports clubs

In order to achieve the ‘five hour offer’ of sport participation each week, we have a number of links with local community clubs. Several clubs share our facilities at Deer Park and we constantly feed pupils into these clubs to widen their experience. These clubs include Cirencester Hockey Club, the Cotswold Gymnastics Club, Team Glos Basketball, Cirencester Table Tennis club.

In addition, other clubs have invited pupils to taster sessions at their venues: wakeboarding at South Cerney, golf at South Cerney Golf Club. We also have links to several sports clubs where members have come into school to lead sessions or have been represented at our Sports Fayre, e.g. Cirencester Netball Club, Cirencester Rugby Club, Stratton Football Club, Beeches Football Club, Cirencester Cricket Club, Cirencester Athletics Club, Cirencester Tennis Club.

KS4 pupils also have the opportunity to extend their sporting experience during curriculum PE by going to Cirencester Golf Club, Wild Rock Northleach for climbing, and the Royal Agricultural College for squash.

See main Cotswold School Sports Partnership page for links to local clubs.

Supporting primary schools, sharing facilities and good practice

The local primary schools have support from the SSCo to encourage all staff to teach high quality PE in lessons. This is done by mentoring teachers, offering guidance in areas such as gymnastics apparatus work and introducing new initiatives. Each primary school has a PE representative (PLT) who all meet regularly and are invaluable to ensuring that pupils have excellent opportunities in lessons, clubs and competitions.

The primary pupils have many opportunities to use the excellent sports facilities at Deer Park. There are several inter school competitions hosted by the Sports leaders such as tag rugby, indoor athletics, high 5 netball, gymnastics, orienteering. Some events such as cross country and athletics are attended by children from over 20 local schools giving great enthusiasm and mass participation. In addition, primary school pupils are invited to attend coaching sessions lead by KS4 pupils as part of the Junior Football Officials Award and Netball Organisers Award.