What is the School Games?

National School Games Mission: Keeping competitive sport at the heart of schools and providing more young people with the opportunity to compete and achieve their personal best

The School Games consists of four unique types of competition:

• Intra-School - These activities are ideally initiated by young people in schools, but are normally run as breakfast, lunch or after school activities, and in some cases they are used as part of PE lessons.
• Inter-School - A calendar of local events organised and delivered by a School Games Organiser. There are three different variations of inter-school competitions:

Pathway: Winners of the event qualify for a county final event

Development: A non-pathway event where the purpose is defined locally

Festival: A rotation of skill based activities

• County Festival - A culmination of a variety of both inter-school pathway and open entry competitions.
• School Games National Finals - The Biennial four day day multi-sport event.

For more information on all of the above please click here to head to the School Games website.

School Games Formats

National Governing Bodies of Sport (NGBs) have worked alongside the Youth Sport Trust (YST) to build and develop a series of sport formats for intra and inter-school competition. These formats aim to encourage all young people to participate and are based on supporting young people to build and extend their skills and confidence.

It is only by following these formats that a competition can be considered part of the School Games but an event organiser should consider the needs of all young people when designing competition.

All registered schools can download all sport formats here.

Reframing Competition

To continue to build on the School Games Mission and Vision, the YST conducted some research into the current competitive school sport environment, to evaluate the possibility of conducting different approaches and formats to competition in order to increase young peoples participation in sport and physical activity.

Following the research the YST have created an interactive resource which considers alternative ways to design and deliver competition, based on eight key themes indicated from the research. The 'Approaches to Competition' resource is available to download at the bottom of the page.

What can you do to #reframecompetition?

Your School Games Organisers

We are lucky to have such enthusiastic and hard-working School Games Organisers who plan and deliver a variety of Inter School Games events throughout the year. They are also essential to providing Active Dorset with advice and support for all County School Games competitions in Dorset.

Please contact your local School Games Organiser (SGO) for information and guidance on the following:

• dates for your local inter school games events
• intra school games events
• inclusive health check
• school games mark
• leadership and training (young people)

Bournemouth
Sarah Dunsford - sarah.dunsford@avonbourneacademy.org.uk

Christchurch & Isle of Purbeck
Dan Moody - daniel.moody@thegrangeschool.com

East Dorset
Katrina Cole - katrina.ssco@btinternet.com

North Dorset
Nico Stone - nstone@gillingham-dorset.co.uk

Poole
Sam Cox - coxs@carter.poole.sch.uk

West Dorset
Nadia Dailey - daileyn@weyvalley.dorset.sch.uk / drivera@weyvalley-academy.co.uk (Maternity Cover)

School Games Organiser: Core Tasks

School Games Organisers focus on the following five core tasks:

• Participation: Drive participation in School Games competition and increase the number of young people taking part in competition.
• Competition for All: Develop competitive opportunities for all, including the least active.
• Clubs: Increase regular participation in club sport; involve the least active through Change 4 Life Sports Clubs and increase links to local clubs.
• Workforce: Broaden participation opportunities through volunteering and workforce roles.
• Performance: Establish key performance indicators, target delivery and review progress on a termly basis