Introduction

Welcome to your February newsletter. Schools continue to be in a state of flux with staff and pupil absences, but your continued engagement with Boys Move and delivery of Active in Mind CPD remains high. Just a couple of reminders this month. In our March edition, we will be coming to you for insight to help inform our physical and mental health tactics in our new strategy. Get your thinking caps on; what are you seeing as the biggest challenges with children’s physical and mental health and how could play and sport contribute to the solution? Your contribution will be important to shaping our direction of travel as a sector.

ACTIONS

Boys Move Surveys

We are still getting great traction with the Boys Move CPD series and we hope these projects are starting to come to life in your school. We are reminding you of the survey links for young people involved in your project, both pre and post-surveys and we have also produced a follow-up survey for you to complete once the training is finished. Please make sure these are completed as much as possible as these will be important to reporting back to Sport England and demonstrating the impact of your work.

Baseline Survey for young people

Follow up Survey for young people

Follow up survey for those attending the CPD

UPDATES

Active in Mind CPD

We have had a few requests for the location of the Active in Mind CPD resources. We appreciate that not all of you were able to join, and for those that did, this was a whistle stop tour. We have reflected on this and below are some top tips for delivery. We have also considered the technical language and detail that was shared and how some colleagues might not be comfortable with delivering this.

Top Tips:

1. Take the time to digest the content before delivery, and simplify further or change any language you are not comfortable with. We are not asking you to be experts here.
2. Use existing sessions/conferences/INSET or virtual opportunities to engage and deliver to your 5 schools.
3. Send a link to the Active in Mind webpage ahead of delivery so colleagues can digest beforehand.
4. Maybe tag team with a colleague so you spit the delivery between you.
5. Create opportunities for break out discussions to check for understanding before moving on.

Please download the recording of the CPD run through here. You can also access the updated slide deck here to use when training you 5 partner schools.

We are sharing the survey links for recipients of the AiM CPD. These include a pre and post-survey for individual schools to complete and we have also produced a follow-up survey for you to complete once the training is finished as lead schools to complete. Please make sure these are completed as much as possible as these will be important to reporting back to Sport England and demonstrating the impact of this work.

Individual schools receiving AiM CPD Pre-Survey

Individual schools receiving AiM CPD Post-Survey

Lead Schools Post-Survey for Delivery to Other Schools

STORIES

DCMS publishes further details of youth services support package – Children and Young People Now

The findings show that young people who responded to the review said their priorities for improvement in the youth sector included an increase in regular activities, the opportunity for “adventures away from home”, increased volunteering opportunities and activities that support mental and physical wellbeing and skills development

The Times view on the education commission report: Learning for Life – The Times

A special Times commission report is calling for changes to education that would make it better suited to the world of work and the digital age.

Expert warns teenagers going blind due to delayed treatment of childhood obesity during Covid – Irish Mirror

"Some of our teenagers are going blind due to obesity-related health conditions. Others are dropping out of education with detrimental effects on their future health and wellbeing"

More children struggling to sleep – The Times

The behaviour, speech development and sleep patterns of young children in Scotland have deteriorated during the pandemic, official analysis shows.

What the pandemic has really done to our children’s minds – Telegraph

If children have chosen ‘anxiety’ as their word of the year, it is because Project Fear has taught them that this is the right way to feel.