PE and Sport Grant

School Sports at Bassenthwaite School
At Bassenthwaite Primary School we value sporting activities and try to provide a wide range of opportunities for all pupils to take part in high quality sporting activities both as part of the curriculum and as extra curricular activities, in addition to competitive sporting activities. We have considered carefully how to make best use of our school sports funding and in particular in how to use our local area to enhance the PE available to our children.

The curriculum
All pupils have access to a broad PE curriculum. This is supplemented by a range of enrichment activities. We buy into the local Sports Partnership Coaching programme and throughout the year, specialist coaches come into school to deliver a range of activities such as cricket, tennis and multi-skills. Children experience a block of coaching in a particular sport, usually leading to an inter school competition.  We also have a service level agreement with Cumbrian SPAA whereby a Specialist PE teacher,  runs a regular PE and sport coaching programme with 4 of the local primary schools. All children from Reception upwards benefit from this throughout the year. The sports leader is also regularly involved with sporting activities both on and off site. This year we have used Keswick Schools indoor climbing wall, received golf coaching from a local professional, specialist dance and football teaching and an afternoon of summer sports events based at Keswick School.

Enrichment
As we live in an area which has excellent opportunities for outdoor activities, we ensure our children get outdoors and experience adventure. We have a developmental programme of residential visits with Years 2-4 receiving an overnight stay in a local centre with an outdoor adventurous experience as the focus every 2 years and a week’s visit to Kingswood at Hexham for KS2 every 2 years again focussing on adventure activities.  Living in the Lakes, we also ensure that children enjoy watersports and this year have utilised a local watersports centre for kayaking, canoeing, windsurfing and sailing.  Next year we are planning to go horse riding, skiing and fell walking.

Competitions
The school takes part in a range of inter and intra school competitions with the main aim for pupils to improve their fitness, improve their competency and enjoy taking part in sport.  An annual cross country event takes place which pupils from Y2 upwards can take part in.  KS2 children have the opportunity to take part in the Keswick Mountain Festival Schools triathlon.  Our Reception and KS1 children take part in a gymnastics competition involving five local primary schools. We hold an annual sports day for all pupils from Reception upwards, with a range of team events, relays and individual races and pupils participating as part of a colour team. Parents are invited to come and take part in a Mums and Dads cricket match with the Y5 and Y6 children!

Swimming
Pupils from Nursery-Year 6 have two weeks intensive swimming blocks (one afternoon each day), usually in the spring and summer term. We are very fortunate to have trained 4 members of staff through the school sports funding. Parental help is essential to allow this swimming to take place and is usually well supported.

Extra-curricular activities
Bassenthwaite School runs a range of extra- curricular activities throughout the year such as cricket, running, dance and football. These vary from term to term and year to year according to staff availability.

School sports funding
School sports funding has been used to buy into an SLA with the local secondary school for competitions and coaching, to take part in the Allerdale school sports partnership coaching programme, to pay for a teacher training and to pay for supply and transport so pupils can attend competitions and sporting events.  We have also used some funding as part payment towards our week’s adventurous residential at Kingswood. Please see the Sports Funding 2022-2023 for a breakdown on how the 2022-2023 funding has been utilised.