Creating Active Schools

Calderdale’s Creating Active Schools programme was launched in Spring 2021 as part of Active Calderdale, one of Sport England’s place-based partners. It now involves 57 schools across the borough, including three secondary schools.

The programme uses the Creating Active Schools framework alongside in-person, whole-school workshops. These sessions bring together all teaching staff to share ideas and help shape a tailored action plan for each school. The result is a collaborative, cross-curricular approach that aligns with the school’s own priorities.

Each action plan is designed specifically for the individual school, taking into account its current provision, facilities, pupil demographics, and location. This ensures the goals are realistic, relevant, and suited to pupils’ needs, while also minimising any additional workload for staff.

Senior leadership team (SLT) involvement helps ensure that policies and practice support a long-term commitment to physical activity as an integral part of the whole-school approach.

What our Active Schools Say...

"One of our school priorities was to look at ways to enhance our provision to provide an environment that promotes positive wellbeing for our pupils, staff and families. After hearing about CAS at a Primary Heads meeting, I immediately saw how the programme would support our aims at New Road. It was important that the introduction of more active learning was easy to implement and didn’t increase the workload of teachers or add to the demands of an already busy daily timetable."

Sharon Harwood, Headteacher, New Road Primary School, Sowerby Bridge

"In a short space of time, the Active Schools programme has been transformational of culture at Sacred Heart.

Children, families and staff alike have already seen the positive impact that a balanced healthy and active lifestyle can have on emotional health and wellbeing and teaching and learning. Our children have enjoyed new challenges and experiences and our teachers now include more active opportunities in each lesson each day."

Alex Hudson-Crook, Headteacher, Sacred Heart Catholic Voluntary Academy, Sowerby Bridge

The Creating Active Schools Programme

Free of charge and fully supported, the Creating Active Schools programme has become part of the local authority’s Calderdale Healthy Schools programme which links physical activity with mental health and emotional wellbeing, and food and nutrition. The Active Schools element has recently been widened to include particularly the benefits of activity on mental health and wellbeing resulting in schools reporting strengthened learning and understanding of these benefits and fewer pupils being referred to mental health support services. Initiatives and resources are being co-developed with teachers and other professionals working with children and young people such as Mental Health Support Teams (MHST) to provide a suite of CPD and support that enables schools to implement effective strategies to help pupils to self-regulate and develop essential life skills through being active. Physical activity for mental health workshops are being delivered to schools to refresh practise, and a suite of online resources to support this is in production.

A similar offer is given through the Calderdale Healthy Early Years programme which early years education and childcare settings, including schools with nurseries, may access to scaffold school readiness and child development which highlight the importance of play and physical activity in an increasingly technology-driven world.

Ensuring a full wraparound approach in schools, partners such as school nursing and mental health and counselling services are participating in Active Conversation training to promote and encourage physical activity for improved mental health and wellbeing, whilst similar training is being developed for organisations supporting families including health visitors and midwives through the Family Hubs model. Of those taking part to date, 85% of service providers now include active conversations in their sessions with young people, and 92% report confidence in this having a positive impact.

Finally, a resource library and CPD offer for schools is in development to ensure their PE, school sport and physical activity offer is inclusive of all pupils, including those with SEND, and to help develop essential life skills and qualities alongside fundamental movement competence and confidence, resulting in more children and young people having a positive experience of being active. Read more on our Schools and Education blog here.

For more information on joining the programme, contact Rebecca Antcliffe, Active Education Manager and CYP Physical Activity Specialist at: Rebecca.Antcliffe@calderdale.gov.uk

Embedded Practice

Evidence for Calderdale’s Healthy Schools Award submitted by St Malachy’s School, Halifax showing an active schools intervention introduced in 2021 that continues to be used today:

Simple approaches such as Active Times Tables have been embedded into daily classroom routines at St Malachy’s. We have seen increased pupil enthusiasm for these activities, which support pupils’ wellbeing, self-regulation and learning.

Oliver Harper, Headteacher, St Malachy’s Catholic Primary School, Halifax