Whiteknights Swimming with Leighton Park Sports Leaders

Weekly during term time, our Year 10 sports leaders welcome KS2 students from Whiteknights Primary School to Leighton Park to share our pool facilities. 

Offering this facility and the skills of our young sports leaders means students in our local state primary school are getting free access to an important life skill.

Our students teach and guide the younger students to success in the pool, sharing their enthusiasm for sport and a commitment to a healthy lifestyle.

Aims

The aim of this partnership is to give KS2 students in our local primary school the chance to learn an important life skill.

Swimming lessons are costly for parents and this weekly session is free of charge.

We know consistency in learning a sport or technique such as swimming is key. The regularity of this visit is crucial to the impact it can make on the lives of the students.

This is a two way partnership. KS2 students from Whiteknights and our Yr 10 sports leaders are the immediate beneficiaries, however staff here at LP put this partnership in place and they too are reaping the rewards of partnership work as they are seeing the positive impact it is having on our own students.

The primary school is supported financially by LP but also through mentoring/community aspects of the weekly visit where positive relationships are formed between both schools.

Background

Head of Girls Games and House Mistress saw the opportunity to build this partnership and it has flourished under her guidance. 

Resources

A safe pool and changing facility are crucial to the success of this partnership in addition to the positive attitude of the PE department who support the offer with staffing and students during Thursday lunchtimes.

Impact

We anticipate surveying the KS2 /Yr 10 students to gain some qualitative assessment of the benefits of the partnership.

This will be done at the end of the academic year.

Yr 12 students use this partnership in order to learn about coaching, planning and delivering effective sessions, responding to feedback from White Knights teachers and working towards completion of coursework for their Cambridge Technical Sport and Physical Activity Level 3 qualification.

Pupil Involvement

Both groups are mixed gender and both come from KS2 and KS4 cohorts.

Frequency

This is a weekly, term time programme which we roll out each year.

We are also looking to run this with an additional primary school.