Opening School Facilities
Introduction
Together Active are one of 43 Active Partnerships recognised by Sport England as the strategic lead for sport and physical activity across the local region.
Earlier this year, we had been successful in obtaining funding for a project to support schools to open up their sports facilities, in order to broaden the offer of extra-curricular and out of school sporting and physical activities available to pupils and the wider community. With the tight timeframes in place we had been unable to gather the information we need to map out the countywide school facilities and their usage until now.
We are seeking to develop insight on the existing landscape by understanding how many schools currently open their facilities for community use and what the barriers are that prevent or deter schools from doing so. We would encourage respondents to be as honest as possible when answering the questions. This survey should take no longer than 20 minutes to complete and is aimed at all schools in the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.
Overview of question themes:
- General school information
- Indoor facilities
- Outdoor facilities
- Accessibility
- Facility needs
- Community use
- Open Data
- How can we help
Please note: The survey will remain open for a couple more weeks; however, the prize draw itself has been completed and winning schools notified.
Link to survey
For further information please visit our Opening School Facilities webpage and contact:
Lijana Kaziow, Opening School Facilities Programme Manager
m: 07889594823
e: lijanakaziow@togetheractive.org
What is the project?
Sport England have announced that £10.1 million of Department for Education funding (DfE) will be invested into the Active Partnership network to encourage and support more schools to open their facilities to pupils and the wider community to enable more children and young people to be physically active.
Together Active are responsible for the delivery of this programme across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent and have been awarded £238,563 to open facilities as soon as possible this summer term.
Together Active will distribute £196,367 in small grants (maximum of £10,000) to a number of priority schools based on an expression of interest process.
When?
The programme will work with schools to open their facilities for after-school, evening, weekend and holiday use from 1st April-31st August 2021.
Please note, DfE require that all funding must be committed or spent by the end of August, but there may be some delivery after this date.
Who? (Criteria)
Support and funding will be targeted predominantly to support schools with a high percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals, higher levels of poor mental health, the least active and to provide more opportunities for pupils with SEND to take part.
We have identified a long list of schools who have over 7% of children with SEND and over 15% with FSM.
Of these, we will be reaching out to 11 schools who have received support from the newly established Mental Health Support Teams and 9 schools with higher than average rates of obesity. Of these, circa 20 schools will receive funding to open their school facilities.
We will base our decisions on readiness and willingness of the school’s senior management to engage, a longer-term commitment to widening community access and a willingness to work with Together Active to become open data compliant in order to facilitate community use.
Before a school considers applying for funding, we suggest looking through the Use Our School Toolkit from Sport England as well as our criteria list of what we are looking for.
How?
Together Active are offering a few different options for support.
- Option 1: Consultancy, information and advice and guidance, including co-design with pupils and small equipment grants. (Maximum £1,000)
- Option 2: School and pupil led interventions to address wellbeing, healthy weight, or other identified priorities, with Together Active sharing the resources to help make it happen. (Maximum £10,000)
- Option 3: Both Option 1 and Option 2. (Maximum £10,000)
Applications for the Opening School Facilities Fund are now closed.
What we ask for in return:
If approved, you’ll be required to sign a funding agreement and complete monitoring and evaluation as part of the programme.
Please view Sport England’s FAQs here.
Thank you to all schools that completed the Together Active School Facilities Survey. We had a brilliant response that has enabled us to map out sport and community facilities across the county.
Congratulations to the following winning schools from the prize draw that have won £500 to spend on supporting pupils to get moving more.
Brewood Middle CofE Academy
Boney Hay Primary Academy
Churnet View Middle School
Clayton Hall Academy
Great Wyrley Academy
Moorside High School
Manifold Church of England Primary School
Saxon Hill Academy
The John Bamford Primary School
Two Gates Primary School
The de Ferrers Academy
Windsor Park CE Middle School