A Big Back-to-School Sports Round Up

This week teachers and pupils flock back to school, fresh notebooks in hand, shiny new shoes on foot. It’s one of our favourite times of year at STM; there’s a renewed sense of productivity in the air and kids are keen to get stuck into new games, sports and activities. Plus, Sainsbury’s 2014 School Games is just around the corner (4th-7th September), an event developed by the Youth Sport Trust (YST) to help young talent succeed in sport. As an official YST Business Honours Club partner, we couldn’t be more excited!

Sainsbury’s 2014 School Games: what is it?

The event has been developed with the aim of creating an inspirational and motivational setting for elite young sports people, and to encourage more young people in general to take part in sport. It’s supported by National Lottery funding from Sport England and it takes place from 4-7 September… not long now! The event is hosted across nine venues, and is set to re-enforce the experience of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, complete with Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

Why is sport important in your school? 

We love big events like this, but it’s important to remember how vital it is to promote grassroots level sports too. From football to gymnastics to fun & games, a PE lesson should inspire pupils to embrace competition, understand values such as fairness and respect, hone their skills and work as part of a team. These are all things that can’t be taught in a classroom setting alone: read our blog on the importance of play to find out more.

Primary school PE games

Asides from the usual rounders and netball, there are plenty of ways to get kids practicing skills such as competing, team work and agility. Here’s a couple of our favourite games, designed to do just this:

Don’t fall in the water!

 Suitable for: 5-11 years

Split a class of about 30 pupils into four evenly sized groups. Assign a bench to each group, which will represent an island (or safe area), and place mats around each bench, which will represent a shark infested ocean! Instruct the pupils to stand on the benches, with the aim of not falling in the water. With this set up in place you can ask the pupils to complete a series of tasks that all rely on strong team work to complete without falling prey to the sharks below. These can be things such as:

• Arrange yourselves in alphabetical order (first names)
• Arrange yourselves in alphabetical order (last names)
• Arrange yourselves in order of birthdays
• Arrange yourselves in order of house number, high to low
• Arrange yourselves according to height

You get the picture… The only limit is your imagination!

Rock, paper, scissors… catch!

Suitable for: 5-11 years

Split your PE class into two teams and instruct them to (privately) decide whether they are going to play rock, paper or scissors. Get them to ‘face off’ at the centre line of your sports pitch - at the count of three they are to reveal their choice.

Remember: paper beats rock, rock beats scissors, and scissors beats paper.

The winning team chases the other to the end line of the pitch, tagging as many members of the other team as possible. Tagged members then become part of the team that caught them.

So, whether you’re going to be attending one of the Sainsbury’s 2014 School Games events, or are looking forward to putting some of the games above into action, we wish you a very happy academic year! Here’s to sport, sport and more sport!