We believe that engagement in both sporting competition (both team and individual) is essential for every child at Upham School. These areas offer more that National Curriculum learning; they encourage discipline, self control, resilience, persistence, health and fitness, practice and build self esteem and confidence, as well as fulfilling a human need to be creative and active. We aim to provide the highest quality education, we are one of only a few schools in the area to have been awarded a prodigious platinum ‘School Games’ Award in 2022 which covers the 2021/22 and 2022/23 academic years. We are proud to have retained this award since first achieving in 2018.

We also believe sporting opportunity is for all, regardless of gender, ability, disability, race or culture. All of our curriculum and school provision is for children in mixed ability, mixed gender groups/ classes. Where competitions run against other schools, these are open to all genders as mixed teams or where they are separate, there are separate opportunities for girls and boys such as football in the Autumn (see photos of teams below) and cricket in the summer. In this way, positive legacy created from events such as Women's Euros Football through July 2022 are easily capitalised on as these opportunities for all genders to participate already exist across Upham School.

We use the sports premium funding we receive from the DfE to promote and support this work we do. There are five key general areas where this money can be used to improve and develop:

• the engagement of all pupils in regular physical activity – the Chief Medical Officer guidelines recommend that all children and young people aged 5 to 18 engage in at least 60 minutes of physical activity a day, of which 30 minutes should be in school
• the profile of PE and sport is raised across the school as a tool for whole-school improvement
• increased confidence, knowledge and skills of all staff in teaching PE and sport
• broader experience of a range of sports and activities offered to all pupils
• increased participation in competitive sport

If you would like to see how funding has been used to develop provision in our school, please click on the links below: