Updates

• Termly Reporting
• School Swimming and Water Safety
• International Day of Persons with Disabilities
• Ask Research QR Code

Events

• Monthly Networking Calls November Hot Topic: The future of Inclusion 2024
• Inclusion Live 2025 – Bookings are now open!
• Youth Sport Trust Conference 2025

Opportunities

• Supporting pupils with SEND at School Swimming

Spotlight

• SEND Youth Leaders 
• Girls Active Insight

Updates

Termly Reporting

A reminder that the deadline for this term's reporting is Thursday 19 December. Please ensure the survey is fully complete and submitted by this deadline. Any questions, please email [email protected].

School Swimming and Water Safety

Following our three School Swimming and Water Safety sessions with Swim England, we have created a webpage with the recording of the session and resources you may find useful to share across your networks. You can find the link to the webpage here.

International Day of Persons with Disabilities

On Tuesday 3 December, International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we shared a reflection on Sport for Disabled Children and Young People in 2024. You can find out more here.

Ask Research QR Code

A reminder to please share this website link or QR code with the partners and schools you work with so they can provide feedback to ASK Research on the Inclusion 24 programme. For example, teachers attending your inclusive sport festivals can fill this in whilst at the event. This information helps ASK Research produce a report on the impact of the programme, demonstrating the great work you do around the country.

Events

Monthly Networking Calls November Hot Topic: The future of Inclusion 2024

For this month’s networking calls we will be focusing on reimagining what a new grant for inclusion could look like. We’d love to hear your feedback on what has worked well for Inclusion 24 and what could be improved. As always, if you have any other queries or would like to share best practice, we would love to hear them too!

• Lead Inclusion School Networking Call, Tuesday 17 December, 12pm. Sign up here.
• Lead Inclusion School Networking Call, Thursday 19 December 3.45pm. Sign up here. 

Inclusion Live 2025 – Bookings are now open!

Our fourth Inclusion Live week takes place between Monday 27 January and Friday 31 January 2025. Each day we will host a free online session of virtual CPD for all practitioners working with young people with SEND.

The five sessions are:

• Monday 27 January 2025, 15:30-16:30 - Neurodiversity in PE and school sport - Creating inclusive experiences
• Tuesday 28 January 2025, 15:30-16:30 - The Paralympics legacy - Embedding inclusive values in school sport
• Wednesday 29 January 2025, 15:30-16:30 - Physical activity for progress - Improving attendance and behaviour
• Thursday 30 January 2025, 15:30-16:30 - A practitioner’s guide to inclusive physical activity - Resources and recommendations
• Friday 31 January 2025, 12:15-13:15 - Move like me - Creating inclusive physical activities for young people with SEND

You can sign up to each event here. We have also created a toolkit of graphics and text templates that you can use to promote the week to your networks. You can access the toolkit here, but this is only for Lead Inclusion Schools.

Please use this toolkit to spread the word and follow the @YouthSportTrust social media accounts for speaker announcements nearer the time.

Youth Sport Trust Conference 2025

We are thrilled to share that bookings for the Youth Sport Trust Conference 2025, taking place on Wednesday 26 March 2025 at the Telford International Centre, are now open. This year’s conference programme is centred around the refreshed pillars of the Youth Sport Trust Well Schools movement: Lead Well - Move Well - Live Well. 

The conference content delivered throughout the day will bring to life how, through collaboration, we can create the happiest and healthiest generation of young learners and inspire a nation of active and well schools. We are delighted to announce that our keynote speakers will be the former Director of Women's Football at The FA, Chair of UK Sport and the Youth Sport Trust, Sue Campbell DBE, and Human Performance Scientist, Dr. James Hewitt.

You can look forward to a day filled with inspiring speakers, interactive workshops, and excellent networking opportunities. Don’t miss the chance to be part of this exciting day. Find out more here.

Opportunities

Supporting pupils with SEND at School Swimming

Lorna from Swim England is looking to continue her delivery of ‘Supporting pupils with SEND at School Swimming' CPD in-person. This is a six hour CPD including both pool and land based training for school workforce and swimming teachers. If this is of interest to you for your county, please email [email protected].

Spotlight

SEND Youth Leaders

As part of our Inclusion 2024 KPIs, we’re focused on increasing the number of SEND Youth Leaders. To inspire you, Orchard Manor School recently hosted two leadership festivals showcasing the talents of ten SEND pupils.

The day featured a morning festival for three local special schools and an afternoon festival for four mainstream schools, with pupils with SEND joining. The festivals included non-traditional activities chosen and co-created by the pupils, such as noughts and crosses boccia, defending the towers, scooter board hungry hippos and tri-biking.

The aim was to encourage fun and personal achievement, rewarding participants with “golden tickets” for effort and positivity, rather than competition. It was incredible to see some pupils earn multiple tickets for their enthusiasm and participation!

Insight

The Girls Active national report was released last month which highlighted the thoughts of over 15,000 young people surrounding the barriers, motivations and perceptions of PE, physical activity and sport, both in and outside of school and how this differs between boys and girls. A summary can be found below.

Nearly two thirds of girls (62%) want to be more active in school but there are barriers that stop them taking part such as not being confident, having their period and being watched by others. The research indicates that girls who experience intersectionality face a higher risk of inactivity.

The number of girls enjoying PE drops notably throughout school life:

• 72% of girls with SEND participate regularly in physical activity (6% less than their non-disabled peers) and only 58% enjoy participating within PE
• 86% of girls age 7 to 8 enjoy PE, compared to 56% of girls age 14 to 15
• Periods remain the biggest barrier to girls’ participation age 11-13 (47%) and age 14-15 (52%).

The full findings within the report can be found here.