Children Talented in PE and Sport

Aims

A programme of multi-skills activities aimed to extend and enrich the experiences gained by children participating at the higher end of the multi-skill spectrum.

Our programme is split into various phases, each including activities that are designed to be stimulating, challenging and innovative for talented children in PE and Sport.

Throughout the various phases of the programme, identification and assessment is used to select students to proceed to the next phase:

Phase Z: 10 year 6 pupils (5 boys 5 girls) talented in PE and Sport, are selected from every primary school within our SSP and meet at their secondary hub school. They participate in 2 hours of activity designed to assess fundamental movement skill (FMS). FMS assessment breaks down physical skills and fitness and considers the quality of each component.

Phase A: Pupils from across the SSP attend a 2 hour event consisting of various team and individual activities designed to assess pupils’ performance across the five ability areas.

Phase B: Split into 2 sessions. The first session is an opportunity to extend and enrich experiences of the participants by engaging them in a 2 hour sport specific session designed to explain the importance and quality of each of their key fitness components (e.g. strength, balance, speed, stamina etc.).

The second part of Phase B is designed to introduce the students to a range of new sports, whilst considering the quality of skills within each activity. Previous activities have included fencing, trampolining, handball etc.

Phase C: Pupils attend a 2 day non residential event at the University Of Essex. The first day is delivered by the Human Performance Unit which works closely with the Centre for Sport and Exercise Science and provides up to date and applied sport science to athletes of all standards. Each pupil will receive, after a series of physical challenges, an individual performance portfolio that can be shown to parents, teachers etc.

The second day is usually delivered by a very experienced and well qualified elite coach, who runs a skills session followed by a tournament. The afternoon consists of a brief skills session in a modified or new team game and then a fun competition.

All secondary schools, and in particular SENCos and PE staff, are notified of any students in their new Year 7 intake that have successfully made it to Phase C.

The best performing students are then invited to attend the Regional Multi-skills Academy Conference which ran for the first time last year at the Sportspark, University of East Anglia.