Local primary schools are city-wide winners

AS part of the city-wide Sheffield Schools Get Active Awards 2020, Royd Nursery Infant School and Deepcar St Johns C.E Junior School were crowned winners of the ‘Upskilling Staff Award’.

The award recognises how Royd and Deepcar are upskilling teaching and non-teaching staff across their whole school in line with Physical Education, Physical Activity and School Sport and it showcases the impact this has had in developing confidence, standards of lessons, opportunities for pupils and attitudes towards PE as a subject area.

Mr Sly, Deputy Headteacher at Royd, commented: “In 2018 Royd received the highly commended award in this category. Since Royd received the highly commended award Miss Jones has also taken over the responsibility of being Headteacher of both Royd and Deepcar. This allowed us to complete a joint submission for the award. Both Royd and Deepcar value PE really highly.

“In 2019 Deepcar also received the highly commended award in the ‘Active Girls’ category. Both schools offer two hours of PE per week and a wide range of after school clubs linked to physical activity are provided. Pupils have the opportunity to compete it intra mural competitions against one another.

“For example, children at Royd participate in the Royd World Cup wherechildren compete against each other in a tournament format, sports days and competitions within the family of schools.

“Similarly, pupils at Deepcar compete in no less than seven intra mural competitions that cover a wide range of sports and they enter city wide sporting competitions where they have regularly achieved a top two finish.

Miss Jones, headteacher at Royd and Deepcar, added: “I am delighted that the school has won this award. This is testament to the staff ’s willingness to provide the very best for the pupils that attend our school”.

Royd recently received an Ofsted inspection that reported, “Pupils have lots of opportunities for physical activity in lessons, at breaktimes and in afterschool clubs. They take part in competitive sports and pupils in Year Two have swimming lessons,” and that, “Subject leaders have made sure that plans show how work is sequenced. It is clear how pupils will build on their learning in each subject, year on year”.

Miss Jones further added: “The Continuous Professional Development (CPD) model is very well thought out and it is tailored to meet the individual member of staffs needs. The CPD model has proved to be a sustainable model which was the purpose of the introduction of the School Sports Premium funding.

“We have had members of staff other than PE coordinator now deliver PE related staff meetings and we have even had a member of staff produce a video for iMoves that is a national dance scheme to support other schools.”