Pupil voice and participation have been identified as areas for development at Irvine Royal Academy and a number of working groups have been established to allow pupils to engage in their school community and share their opinions and feedback on a number of whole-school issues. Building on his previous expertise of working with Sports Councils with Active Schools, Rory decided that one way to foster participation and pupil voice within his department would be the creation of a school Sports Council. The aim was to engage pupils in improving the delivery of sport and physical education at Irvine Royal Academy, creating a voice for pupils to introduce and develop ideas for their school.
“this has been a positive step forward to improving equality within the PE department”
Surveying pupil attitudes to sport
In the first half of session 2015-16, two pupils from each year group, a boy and a girl, attended the first Irvine Royal Sports Council, with a view to helping shape the future of sport and physical activity at their school. The young people on the council undertook to survey attitudes to PE and sport among their peers and devised a questionnaire for all pupils to form a better understanding of this. The questionnaire was designed to highlight areas of PE and sports provision which were going well, as well as to identify areas of concern that may be having a negative impact on the pupils’ engagement with PE and sport. The questionnaire had a good response rate, allowing the Sports Council to develop a fair picture of young people’s attitude towards PE and sport in their school.
Following the completion of the survey, the Sports Council considered the findings to determine what issues should be taken forward as a priority. Rory provided the group with support and management, to develop core issues and work towards desired outcomes. Many positive results emerged, including: that pupils enjoyed PE and motivation was good; that pupils felt there was a positive learning environment and that behaviour issues were dealt with successfully.
“The formation of the Sports Council has led to improved communication links between pupils and staff”
More PE!
Areas for development were also identified, which could be explored to improve young people’s experience of PE and key changes, both curricular and extra-curricular, have been made to PE provision, as a direct result of the survey. These include the introduction of dance classes as an extra-curricular option, and S1 pupils have moved from 2 periods of PE per week to 3. A “you said – we did” board was introduced, to advertise to young people that the department took learners’ feedback on-board.
Rory comments, “The sports questionnaire was an excellent guiding resource to help us focus our attentions to the areas that are of most concern at present and it gave the Sports Council a purpose and achievable goals for them to work towards. The pupils involved all feel this has been a positive step forward to improving equality within the PE department. I think there was a very positive impact from the pupils seeing that staff were interested in their opinions and seeing that some of their choices have then been carried out.”
Pupil staff communication
Building on this successful exercise in participation and pupil voice, the department has further developed this by changing their inter-house games to a new - and improved – format, where the Sports Council themselves take part in organising and delivering this. There has also been an increased uptake of senior pupils wanting to help deliver and play their part in improving physical activity in the school.
In Rory’s view, “The formation of the Sports Council has been a positive step forward to improving the communication links between pupils and staff within the P.E. department. We have many talented and enthusiastic learners and hearing their opinions is a valuable asset to help improve our delivery and the pupils’ experiences of sport and exercise at Irvine Royal Academy.”
