School Games Mark 2021/22

With the evolution of the School Games gathering at a pace, we have taken the opportunity to review School Games Mark to ensure it still fit for purpose. It remains central that School Games Mark is a development tool that needs to help schools to effectively reflect on their engagement in the School Games and to also reflect on the difference that they are making for those young people that need to be physically active the most.

We want this to be a clear and simple review tool that aids schools to make some informed decisions and allow School Games Organisers (SGOs) to get a better understanding of the schools that they work with needs. Based on feedback from the network of schools and SGOs we have looked to reinstate and refresh the levels of Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum for 2021/22 enabling those schools that want the stretch to do so whilst supporting all schools to benchmark their provision against a nationally recognised set of criteria.

The purpose of School Games Mark remains constant; To reward and recognise school’s engagement (provision and uptake) in the School Games against a national benchmark and to celebrate keeping Young People active.

The outcomes of School Games Mark and the School Games are entwined. Schools will need to demonstrate how they are/have;

• Maintaining and growing their school’s engagement in the School Games and their delivery of 60 active minutes for every child
• Creating positive experiences to ensure physical activity and competition provision is designed to reflect the motivation, competence and confidence of their young people and has a clear intent
• A clear focus on particular transition points (Yr.3 and Yr.7/8 as well as those in 3 tier systems) and how secondary schools are engaging in the School Games
• Create positive experiences that support the character development of their young people
• Advocated to key stakeholders how the School Games makes a meaningful difference to the lives of children and young people, including engaging and educating their parents

Award Levels

Following consultation with the network we are clear that not every school has the desire or time to undertake an extensive application nor are all schools keen to progress through the awards year on year – although we would strongly advocate this.

For those schools that might have limited capacity the bronze award will be considered the entry level and demonstrate that they are providing and engaging their young people in high quality School Games opportunities, this will aid evidencing that they are an ‘actively engaged school’.

School Games Mark Silver and Gold are applicable to those schools that want to challenge themselves and demonstrate their progress over time against a national benchmark.

For those schools that have been engaged over a number of years and or have previously attained School Games Mark Platinum they will be asked to demonstrate in more detail the impact and difference that they are making.  Platinum is applicable to those schools that have attained that level of award before or have achieved School Games Mark Gold for 4 consecutive years prior to academic year (so years 15/16, 16/17, 17/18, 18/19).  If they attain the new gold standard this year then these schools will be eligible to access platinum in this round. The ‘application’ for Platinum schools will ‘open’ once a school has satisfied all the criterion for School Games Mark gold.

The Process

To ensure that we are not adding to the bureaucracy of school, teacher workloads we will adhere to some of the lessons learned from last academic years approach and keep questions streamlined and maximise the use of drop-down boxes and limiting open ended responses.

After completing an application schools will be able to download their responses and they will be signposted to some top tips and other resources to help them on their development journey, this is akin to what the system has done in the past academic year and gives a SGO a further engagement point to discuss their development plan.

SGOs will need to verify their school’s applications for all levels of the award, a window will be set for this to happen which will be approx. two weeks after a school has submitted. SGOs will be required to leave some developmental comments to aid their school’s future progress. Validation will take place at the end of the academic year with some leeway into September 2021 for those SGOs who don’t work over the summer.   SGOs will retain the ability to downgrade and upgrade schools based on their ongoing conversations with their schools and their knowledge and evidence that they have seen previously.

It remains that School Games Mark applications should not include any KS1 provision.

Application window will open 4th May 2022 until 27th July 2022