School Sport Specialists
West Lancashire Sport Partnership has School Sport Specialists working across more than 50 schools. We are committed to providing expert teachers and coaches who are passionate about working with young people. We strongly believe both young people and school staff benefit greatly from working with and alongside our specialists in their field of expertise.
Delivery is split into six areas to reflect the intended outcomes of the national curriculum. We work closely with the PE adviser from Lancashire County Council and all of our lesson plans and objectives are based on the Lancashire Scheme of Work. All of our sessions are differentiated to meet the needs of every learner within each class.
The six areas that we have identified for delivery are:
- Athletics
- Dance
- Gymnastics
- Invasion Games
- Striking and Fielding
- Outdoor and Adventurous Activity
School Sport Specialists are rotated every half-term, providing schools with the opportunity to work with 6 different specialists each academic year. Many models of delivery have been tried and tested over the last 15 years and we believe that this model has the greatest impact in developing the physical literacy and specific skills in young people. We also believe that working with specialist staff provides the most effective platform for the Continued Professional Development of teachers and teaching assistants within PE and school sport. School staff are encouraged to join the specialist within the session - whether that involves working one-to-one with a child, working with a small group, or leading parts of the session themselves.
A School Sport Specialist working in your school will undertake the following tasks:
• Deliver a progressive unit of work to pupils from nursery through to Year 6 which can include mixed year groups.
• Assessment of each individual child using an age appropriate core task from the Lancashire Scheme of Work.
• Embed our ‘Champions of Character’ character education programme into curriculum and extracurricular delivery, explicitly teaching honesty, reflection, responsibility, respect, empathy and resilience. The specialists reward these behaviours demonstrated by young people with stickers and postcards home.
• Delivery of a School Games Level 1 Competition related to the specialist’s specific area, to individual classes or to a collapsed number of classes for a larger scale event in school. Team and individual achievement in these Level 1, intra-school competitions are rewarded with stickers, certificates and medals.
• Delivery of a targeted Change4Life Lunchtime Sports Club engaging less active pupils in school.
• Delivery of an After School Sports Club focusing on the development of skills for a specific sport and introducing these skills into small-sided games.
Through the core offer, WEST LANCASHIRE SPORT PARTNERSHIP provides the services of a school sport specialist to work in your school every week. In addition to this, member schools are given access to a wide range of opportunities related to PE and school sport.
Minimum Operating Standards
For quality assurance purposes, School Sport Specialists are regularly monitored individually through lesson observations, one-to-one performance management meetings and through peer-to-peer observations. Lessons are assessed using OFSTED criteria and all documentation is shared with the school.
- Minimum UKCC Level 2 qualified in their area of delivery
- Public Liability and Personal Indemnity Sports Specific Insurance
- Enhanced DBS Clearance
- Disqualification by Association Clearance
- Sports Coach UK Coaching Disabled People in Sport
- Sports Coach UK Equity in your Coaching
- Sports Coach UK Safeguarding and Protecting Children
- First Aid trained
- Youth Sport Trust Level 3 Award in Mentoring Practice
The Benefits for your School
- Consistent, high quality PE lessons from School Sport Specialists.
- Well planned and progressive sessions.
- Improved levels of attainment across the whole PE curriculum.
- Instant access to both CPD and resources that support PE delivery.
- The opportunity for children to engage in a wide variety of activities working with specialist coaches.
- A varied timetable of after school activities.
- Access to assessment documents to support ongoing PE assessment in school.
