School Games Values

Over the last few years we have seen big changes in competitive school sport at primary school level with increased participation, a wider offer of sports and more inclusive opportunities. The priority for us now locally is around delivering impact and ‘an educationally powerful competition experience’.

We want to make sure that all of our competitions provide a rich and positive learning experience for all young people so we will be continuing to promote the ‘Spirit of the Games’ values at our events and would like to encourage schools to get involved by ensuring their children know what these values mean and why they are important in sport, school and everyday life. With this in mind we have put together a Spirit of the Games Assembly presentation which schools can use in an assembly or with individual classes to introduce the 6 values and to get children thinking about what they mean and how we can learn through sporting experiences. You can download the presentation from the resources section of our website here.

As well as rewarding the winners and runners up at each of our competitions we will also be recognising the team/school that has shown good sportsmanship and best demonstrated these sporting values and they will be presented a ‘Spirit of the Games’ award. For this to have worth it’s important that all schools make sure their children are aware of these values and what they mean.

These values are not only important in sport but also the wider school context and everyday life. You may want to consider how you can promote them or use them in your schools, for example:

• Do they link to your whole school values or can they be used as rewards for PE & sport?

• Can school sport/competition and these values support an ethos of aspiration and personal best in your school?

• Can you use these values to promote inclusive opportunities for all young people –so it’s not always just the best team/performer that gets recognised?

We have also developed some Codes of Conduct to tie in with this work on sporting values. They are something that schools may wish to adopt or they may be a starting point from which schools/pupils could develop their own codes of conduct. You may wish to develop or adapt your own whole school or PE specific reward based system using the “Spirit of the Games” values, stickers and certificates.  If you would like some spirit of the games values stickers to use in school please get in touch with us and certificates can be downloaded below along with pupil worksheets and an assembly presentation which is in the resources section of our website. If there are any other resources or support you would like with this work please let us know.

We have already had some good feedback from schools on our new resources:

“As part of this week’s PE session with our year 5 / 6 children, I went through the PowerPoint presentation and all had an opportunity to discuss and present their views on each off the 6 values. We came to an agreement and an understanding that these same values should form the basis of every PE lesson along with sporting competitions and it was something that we found incredibly useful. I have now laminated the PowerPoint slides that outline each of the 6 values and they form part of our PE successes display board in the hall.”

 “I really liked the values so laminated them and have put them up on the PE noticeboard at our school already so this will run alongside it.”

“The Code of Conduct is great. I will definitely use it. I will probably display it on the PE noticeboard and put it in the school newsletter and then give it to the children to take home and discuss with their parents each time they are asked to represent the school. It’s a great idea.”

“We give out PE HIP tickets which are Histon and Impington Points. So in a PE lesson if we see good sportsmanship etc they get a PE HIP. Then they can put these in a box in their classroom and they are counted at the end of the week and the class with the most have a trophy for that week which is awarded in assembly. Now we have delivered assemblies on it I am going to get teachers to focus on the ‘Spirit of the Games’ as to when children deserve a PE HIP. They get HIP tickets for being polite around the school etc as well so it is not only for PE.”