To all Humber Schools,
Firstly I want to commend you and your teams for your hard work on PE and school sport during this time and it has been delightful that schools, where possible, have encouraged children to keep active, whether that be joining in with virtual competitions or keeping active in their community.
Sport England’s data tells us that whilst most children were active for some time during the lockdown period, physical activity levels amongst children and young people had fallen to only 19% meeting the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines of one hour a day.
With schools closed for the majority, for many children this took away the main place that they were active, coupled with this, places outside of school that create physical activity opportunities such as parks, leisure centres and clubs have all been closed too.
Active Humber and the wider school sport network are here to support you in ensuring physical activity is a core part of your school day. Physical activity is hugely valuable and now more than ever, it will contribute to supporting children adjust to school life, reduce anxieties, boost morale and wellbeing, allow children to use their energy and aid concentration amongst many more benefits.
Physical activity can be woven through the school day such as;
- encouraging families to scoot, bike and walk to school
- having regular physical activity breaks
- creating active learning tasks in all subjects
- taking learning outdoors
In addition, outside of school there are a huge range of opportunities available for you to take advantage of, these include;
- competition
- CPD
- leadership opportunities
We would encourage you, in the first instance, to speak to your local School Sports Partnership and discuss the opportunities and support available.
To support primary schools in this task, it is fantastic to see the confirmation that primary schools in England will receive the £320 million PE and Sport Premium for the academic year 2020/21 and any underspent funding from 2019/2020 can be rolled over.
Now, more than ever, is the time to make sure that this funding is used effectively and has a positive impact on the physical activity levels of children and young people. We must challenge ourselves to make sure there is a legacy resulting from this funding and the opportunity it provides is not being lost.
Once again I want to take the time to thank you and your school for the great work you have done during this period, but more important is the recovery phases we are about to embark on and every effort should be made to not only catch up on lost learning but ensure our children and young people are in good physical and mental health, your role in this is crucial and we wish to support you in achieving this.
If you wish to contact Active Humber and/or your local School Sports Partnership, the contact email addresses are listed at the end of this letter. We would love to hear from you whether you need support or to share some of the brilliant examples of work taking place across the Humber. So, on behalf of Active Humber and our colleagues from the 6 School Sports Partnerships across the Humber, we look forward together, to helping you ensure your children are physically active at school.
Yours Sincerely
David Gent
Chief Executive Officer
Active Humber
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Active Humber - info@activehumber.co.uk
East Riding East SSP - Angel Sanderson- pdm@thessp.org.uk
East Riding West SSP- 'Vacant' - pdm@cottinghamhigh.net
Hull Active Schools -Alex Sherwood - asjerwood@siriusacademy.org.uk
Hull Active Schools - Mark Arridge - MArridge@smchull.org
Get Ahead Partnership (North Lincolnshire) - Liz Notman - liz.notman@baysgarthschool.co.uk
Get Ahead Partnership (North Lincolnshire) - Sarah Burdett - sarahb.sgo@gmail.com
North East Lincolnshire SSP - Craig Dobbs - craig.dobbs@oasiswintringham.org
