Sports' Grant Annual Report 2022-2023

Annual School Sport Successes

School Sports' Grant Funding 2023-2024

At Whitehall Junior School, we view leading healthy and active lifestyles as a priority for our children and their families. The sports funding we receive each year enables us to successfully provide a diverse range of opportunities for our children to be healthy and active. Each year, we review our spending and evaluate the effectiveness of our sports provision. This analysis is then used to widen and enhance the opportunities we provide to ensure our children continue to live healthily and actively as well as learning new strategies to be healthy. The school will spend the funding on: promoting healthy, active lifestyles; increasing numbers of children who participate in out of hours sports clubs; using external providers to deliver adventure activities; use of coaches/PE coordinator to team teach PE lessons with school staff; and providing children with leadership opportunities within sport. The money will be allocated accordingly in order to support the school to make sustainable improvements to the provision of PE and sport for the benefit of all our children.  

Whitehall has been informed that we will receive approximately £19,795.00 in sports funding for the academic year 2023-24.  We have also carried over from last year £11,496.00, meaning this year we have approximately £31,291.00 to spend.  See the document below for how we plan to spend this sports grant:

School Games Award

Whitehall Junior School achieved the Gold School Games Award for 2022-2023.

The School Games Mark is a Government-led award scheme launched in 2012, facilitated by the Youth Sport Trust to reward and recognise school’s engagement (provision and uptake) in the School Games against a national benchmark and to celebrate keeping young people active, and we are delighted to have been recognised for our success.

We are extremely proud of our pupils for their dedication to all aspects of physical activity and school sport, including those young volunteers, leaders and officials who made our events possible.  We are committed to using the School Games to try and engage those young people who haven’t previously been active or represented our school and to try and ensure that all our students have a positive experience and want to try out new activities beyond school too in our community.  We believe in the power of physical activity and school sport as a school and give opportunities to those young people that need it most either as a participant, leader, official or volunteer.

As part of our application, we were asked to fulfil criteria in the areas linked to the five School Games outcomes and we are pleased that the hard work of everyone at our school has been rewarded.

Commonwealth Games 2022

At Whitehall Junior School, we will continue to use the power and inspiration of the 2022 Commonwealth Games to inspire our pupils in the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle and developing a life-long love of sport.  We will achieve this through assemblies, PE lessons, intra-school competitions and through extra-curricular activities, through referencing the following ethos these games provided:

- Motto: Games for everyone.

- Humanity, equality and destiny in everything we do.

- Kind hearts and never quitters.

- Friendly games.

PE Lessons

At Whitehall Junior School, we view Physical Education as an extremely important part of the National Curriculum. All children are timetabled with two hours of PE every week. These sessions include both indoor and outdoor PE lessons. Throughout the academic year, children complete three dance and three gymnastics units through indoor sessions. Outdoor PE lessons provide children with the opportunity to take part in a range of invasive team games and individual sports as well as athletics. Our PE lessons teach the children the skills needed be successful in a range of sports. Every PE unit provides the children with the opportunity to practise the skills learnt in competitive scenarios. Our inclusive PE curriculum allows all children to develop communication, teamwork and leadership skills in a healthy competitive environment.

Sports Coaches

Sports coaches are a vital part of Physical Education and sport at Whitehall Junior School. They are deployed in a range of capacities to ensure children receive high quality teaching in both PE lessons and extra-curricular sports clubs. The sports clubs at Whitehall Junior School are delivered by fully qualified coaches. On a weekly basis, the coaches provide regular training sessions for a wide range of sports and physical activities. We have had great feedback from the children who are currently attending these clubs and it has been great to see them benefit from these wider opportunities. Our sports coaches are also utilised during lunchtimes. Every child has the opportunity to be physically active by taking part in games led by our coaches at lunchtime (as well as our trained sports ambassadors). This year we are are continuing to work with Super Star Sports coaches. Our dedicated PE coordinator, who has worked alongside trained sports coaches for a number of years, will work alongside our teachers throughout the year to develop their PE teaching skills; this will involve team-teaching and observation sessions to ensure our teachers continue to deliver high quality PE lessons.  

Squad Training

As well as the clubs ran by external sports coaches, a number of Whitehall staff also give up their free time to deliver squad training sessions. From these squad training sessions, children have the opportunity to represent Whitehall in a range of inter-school competitions. These competitions consist of leagues where matches take place on a weekly basis and knock-out tournaments. 

Swimming 

Skip2bfit Workshops

Every class across the school had a Skip2bfit workshop today, led by an instructor from this company.  Skip2bfit uses counting skipping ropes and music to motivate everybody to exercise by challenging them to take the two minute skipping challenge.  This challenge is not only fun, it incorporates numeracy as well as teaching the importance of fitness and healthy living. The school has purchased a counting skipping rope for every pupil across the school so that we can continue with the skipping challenges in school and record progress over time.  These workshops were thoroughly enjoyed by all and we are looking forward to tracking the progress we make in the coming weeks.  Here is their website for further information: Skip2bfit - Skipping Workshops in Schools

Great Ormand Street 5K Fun Walk/Run for Charity

During the week beginning 05/10/23, Whitehall Junior School took park in Great Ormand Street (GOSH) Charity’s 5k family fun walk/run, RBC Race for the Kids, to raise funds to help build a new Children’s Cancer Centre at Great Ormond Street Hospital.  It was an event that was thoroughly enjoyed by all and we were pleased to see so many family members come and join in this event, thank you for your support.  We are pleased to announce that we raised £451.00 for the GOSH Charity plus £104.45 Gift Aid.  Thank you to all those that sponsored Whitehall Junior School!

Barclays Girls' Football Schools Partnership: England Football (International Women's Day)

On Friday 8th March, sixty-five girls, and six girl sports ambassadors, celebrated International Women's Day through taking part in an afternoon of football drills and football matches.  It was an afternoon that was thoroughly enjoyed by all who participated and Whitehall Junior School is proud to have so many girls engaging in football at our school.

Inter-school (level 2) competitions 2023-24

Netball Training and League

Miss Costa and Miss Groves was delighted with the number of pupils who were committed to attend our weekly netball training sessions on a MWednesday lunchtime.  This year saw an improvement in pupils' basic skills as well as their knowledge of the game.  It was wonderful to see the improvements everyone made as well as the enthusiasm you all showed for this sport.  Each week you were set new challenges and it was wonderful to see the determination you all showed to improve further.  Those who represented the school in netball league matches this academic year played extremely well and represented the school brilliantly.

Football Training and League

Mr Jones was overwhelmed by the number of pupils who were committed to attend our weekly football training sessions on a Tuesday lunchtime.  He was delighted with the enthusiasm and determination by all, including several girls, who attended to further develop in their spatial awareness and specific skill development.  Those who represented the school in football league matches this year showed fantastic sportsmanship throughout and improved their performances as the league progressed.

Girls' Football Festival

On Wednesday 11th October, Whitehall took eight girls to participate in the district girls' football festival, which was led by members from Hillingdon Abbots Football Club.  The purpose of this event was to inspire more girls to become involved with sport, especially off the back of the Lioness’s success at this summer’s Women's World Cup.  The event was enjoyed by all who participated and two of the girls who attended now play regularly in our school's football league team.

Sportshall Athletics

Eighteen children (nine boys and nine girls) took part in the Sportshall Athletics competition during the afternoon of Thursday 23rd November (the venue was Swakeleys School).  The event was action packed with a variety of races, throwing and jumping events.  The hall was full of excited athletes determined to do the best they could in their events to win valuable points for their school.  All of our pupils performed brilliantly in their events and showed amazing sportsmanship throughput the afternoon.  We came tenth place overall from the eighteen teams that competed.  A great achievement amongst very strong competition!  

Girls' Netball Rally

On Saturday 24th February, we took a team to take part in the District Girls' Netball Rally, which was held at Ryefield School.  The team played exceptionally well during the group phase of the competition: beating Hillingdon 'C' 7-0, losing to Hermitage 'A' 2-1 and drawing with Oak Farm 'A'.  The team performed so well that they qualified for the quarterfinals.  The standard of play that our team showed in the quarterfinal was very impressive but unfortunately, they did not progress to the semi-final, losing 4-0 against Rabbsfarm.  The team showed wonderful sportsmanship throughout the tournament and there was some phenomenal shooting, and interceptions, too.  Thank you to all of the family members who came along to support the team.

Boys' Netball Rally

On Thursday 14th March, we took eight boys to participate in this year's district boys' netball rally, which was held at Ryefield School.  Despite the wet weather and cold conditions, our team was full of enthusiasm and energy and they applied themselves fully in all of their group phase matches of this competition.  Their amazing teamwork and skill in each of their games showed as they progressed to the semi final stage of the competition.  We played against a very strong Oak Farm team but unfortunately, we did not progress to the final (however, we did lose to the eventual winners of the competition).  The boys thoroughly enjoyed the competition and they were proud to take away bronze medals from today's event.  Well done boys!  Thank you to all of the family members who came along to support our team! 

Mixed Netball Rally

On Monday 25th March, we took two teams to take part in the District Mixed Netball Rally Competition, which was held at Ryefield School.  Both teams played very well throughout the group phase of the competition: with Team B winning one of their three games and Team A winning two of their three games.  Unfortunately, only our A team progressed to the quarter-finals.  Their quarter-final match was against St. Catherine's and our team won this match 7-1.  This meant that we progressed to the semi-finals, where we faced a very good Hermitage A team.  Despite playing excellently in this match, we lost 6-2 and did not progress to the final.  However, we did lose to the eventual winners of the competition.  All sixteen pupils thoroughly enjoyed the competition and Team A were proud to take away bronze medals from today's event.  Well done!  Thank you to all of the family members who came along to support our teams!