All winners of Nike’s Active Schools Innovation Award (ASIA), the group represented China’s most innovative PE teachers who are transforming practice in their schools.

As Nike’s delivery partner for this once in a lifetime experience, Youth Sport Trust International was responsible for the educational programme for the week – arranging visits to primary schools in London and Birmingham to observe PE lessons and give demonstrations of lessons in China, organising briefings by experts, running an interactive workshop and showcasing the world class sporting facilities on Loughborough University campus. The visit had three key objectives:

• To provide ASIA winners/Chinese PE teachers the opportunities to learn international best practices on PE and youth Sport through a unique and comprehensive learning journey and share China’s experience with international counterparts;
• To enable them to apply what they learn to their daily PE teaching when back in China;
• To experience international sport culture through local sport, games and activities.

It wasn’t all hard work for the teachers. On the cultural side, they attended a Premier League football match (Liverpool against Tottenham Hotspurs), visited the British Museum, climbed to the top of the O2 arena, sampled fish and chips, spent time in Oxford and wrapped up the week with some shopping at Bicester Village.

ASIA is a key component of Nike’s Active Schools programme in China.  Launched in 2016, Active Schools is a partnership with China’s Ministry of Education and China Foundation for Education Development to get more than two million children active across China over three years.  So far the programme has reached more than 5.4 million kids and 12.000 PE teachers across 10,500 schools.  The award was created in 2017 to inspire PE teachers across China to develop and share their innovative solutions for improving the culture of play and sport in their schools, and to recognise their efforts on both a national and global stage.

Each year 100 out of thousands of applicants are selected to be recognised at an award ceremony in Beijing and 30 of them are announced as winners of the International Exchange.   Previous exchanges have taken place to the USA and 2023 was the first exchange since 2019 due to the Covid pandemic and the first visit to the UK.  This year’s group was double in size as it consisted of winners from two years but not everyone was able to secure the necessary visa to travel to the UK.

"It was a pleasure for YST International to host this amazing group of teachers and see their growth mindset, energy and enthusiasm, not only to learn about primary PE in this country but to share demonstrations from their own culture.  Dragon flow and bamboo stick activities were particularly popular with the children who took part. We hope ASIA will return to the UK in two years’ time." Helen Vost, Youth Sport Trust International

For further information about the work of Youth Sport Trust International contact [email protected].