Opportunities - PE and Sport

PE and Sport

LEO Sports currently provides sports services in schools across the boroughs of Sutton, Reigate & Banstead, Epsom & Ewell, Elmbridge, and the Mole Valley district. We take pride in the provision we deliver to each and every Primary School we work within, and our offer goes far beyond just PPA cover. Our staff are a committed part of each school's PE and School Sport team, and work to complement the work of PE subject leaders. As well as delivery of high quality PE lessons, our staff organise and facilitate sports teams and fixtures. This will help to develop the quality of sports teams and children’s ability to work successfully as a team. Our staff also offer engaging before and after-school clubs to develop pupils’ skills and promote a love of physical activity.

At LEO Academy Trust, we recognise the importance and impact of high quality physical education and are committed to making sport more accessible and desirable to all pupils within the trust. We aim for all children to live a healthy and fulfilling lifestyle by encouraging and inspiring participation in the wide variety of physical activities and sports led by our coaches and thus developing their self-motivation to continue this beyond school life.

In order to enrich pupils’ childhood experiences and inspire ambition for their future, LEO Academy schools offer an incredibly wide and diverse range of sporting opportunities. Below are just a few of the overall experiences that have been made available to our pupils. 

  • LEO Exclusive visit from the Cricket World Cup trophy 

  • World Para Swimming Championships - London Aquatics Centre

  • Brownlee Foundation Triathlon  

  • British Basketball All-Stars Championship- Copper Box Arena 

  • England Ladies vs Germany - ‬ Wembley Football Stadium 

  • ATP Tennis Finals at the London O2 

  • England Men’s Football Match vs Denmark -  Wembley Football Stadium

  • Canary Wharf Squash Classic  

  • Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships

  • Hockey Training at the Twickenham Stoop Stadium.

Our extensive, broad extra curricular programme involves up to 50 extra-curricular clubs every week in each school, please see Cheam Common Junior Academy Extra curricular clubs list as an example. These clubs include professional golf coaching at Horton Park Golf Club, football coaching with JDFS football school, archery, rugby, boxing, cycling, dance and gymnastics classes. We are always looking to add to our range of sporting provision and are committed to making sport as inclusive as possible, giving every child the opportunity to find the right sport for them. All of our clubs that are facilitated by LEO sports instructors and teachers are free of charge to all pupils. We reserve spaces for our Pupil Premium students and have clubs dedicated to SEND pupils such as our Healthy Lions Club and inclusive clubs such as sitting-volleyball and kurling. Our hugely successful links with Surrey Cricket has also seen the progress of our LEO Allstars and Dynamos cricket programs, available to our Pupil Premium pupils. We have also formed great partnerships with the charity Panathlon to provide further sporting opportunities for our SEND pupils. 

The Trust is extremely proud of the sporting opportunities available to our pupils and recognise that this offer would not be possible without the enthusiasm and dedication of our Sports Team lead by Matt Warner our Sports Development Manager.  Each of our coaches is committed to their own professional development which is supported by the Trust and the Growing Great People approach. 

One example of this is a young employee who joined the Trust through the Kickstart scheme, who then went on to take  a Level 4 apprenticeship in School Sports Coaching and has now been employed as a full time sports coach.  The Trust delivers a very successful sports apprenticeship, which has seen the first bank of sports apprentices achieving a Level 5, Foundation degree qualification and are now continuing to develop their coaching careers within the Trust, leading on school sport in their respected schools. 

 

The key to the success of our sports team is the willingness of individuals - who have already completed our development programme - to share their knowledge and skills and support new apprentices joining our Trust.  This supportive collaborative working is pivotal in facilitating growth and progressions as our team continues to develop for the future. 

 

The trust itself has a great passion to ensure that all children have access to a wide range of sporting opportunities so that all our pupils are able to participate and thrive in a wide range of sporting activities, whatever  their social or economic background is. Our sports team goes one step  further by supporting sporting ventures in our local community. An example of this is four members of our team (apprentices and sports coaches) volunteer their time to manage and coach the  boys and girls Sutton Schools’ Borough football teams on weekends.  Our Trust also offers the facilities to do this free of charge to remove the cost barriers which could prevent children attending. 


Competitions

As well as providing sporting opportunities for all, we also recognise the importance of competition in school sport. Our Sports team helps us to excel in our competitive sports provision, setting us apart from many local schools. We encourage all LEO Schools to enter all borough events ran by the Sutton Sports Partnership, as well as actively looking for further sporting opportunities outside of the Borough and ran by independent organisations such as The Brownlee Foundation, Chelsea FC, Fulham FC, Crystal Palace FC, Nomads Korfball, Surrey County Cricket and Panathlon competitions. Football has always been a large focus in LEO Schools where we compete in the Sutton Schools FA league and cup fixtures at Sutton United FC, and enter County and National Competitions. However, we recognise that competitive sporting opportunities go beyond football and continue to raise the profile and quality of all sports including niche and developing sports within our extra-curricular and competitive sporting offer. An example of this is creating links with Nomads Korfball Club to take pupils from all Trust schools to competitive Korfball events. 

 

To complement these sporting fixtures and events our sports teams run our own LEO friendlies and festivals to promote participation and give all pupils of LEO the opportunity to represent their school. We believe in promoting the sporting values of fairness, integrity, responsibility and respect as well as developing and nurturing a love for sport and physical activity. During their time at LEO Schools, pupils develop the skills needed to play a comprehensive range of sports to a high standard, preparing them for the sporting world and inspiring them to continue working towards a healthy lifestyle. 


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