School Focus: Develop the school as a community hub and outdoor fitness equipment provider.
Expression of interest overview
Deighton Primary School serves the community of Tredegar, Blaenau Gwent. With almost half of the pupils eligible for free school meals (45.2%), it would suggest that local provision would be beneficial for the pupils within the area. The school identified that there was a lack of suitable and safe outdoor spaces for children and young people and the school sought to allocate the programme investment to enabling the school grounds to act as a community hub. The school planned that if the weather prohibited the use of the outdoors, the school hall could be utilised. The intention was for the funding to be spent on three overarching areas to support the creation of a community hub:
- Supplement additional paid hours for the caretaker and cleaners to ensure a clean and safe environment was provided in the evenings, as well as the next day for school
- Purchase outdoor fitness equipment and associated equipment (e.g. flood lights)
- External providers to deliver sessions
Programme implementation
The school received funding from February to August 2022. Attendance numbers, recorded by the school, tailed off across the months, with greatest attendance in February (34 participants), followed by April (24 participants), and the least attendance in June (8 participants). Monthly learning logs listed activities the school had been offering, such as Taekwondo, dance, balance bikes, holiday Fit and Fed, and participant-led mass games.
Through the monthly completion of learning logs, the following key reflective points were highlighted, and the school’s implementation of the programme was documented in the timeline shown in Figure 1.
What worked well:
- Ongoing consultation shaped provision
- Holiday mass participation activity and using external providers to deliver new activities was very popular
- Children and young people from an isolated community attended
- Signposting to community offers
- It was perceived by staff that pupil’s physical activity levels increased
Learning points:
- Improve communication - allow more time to promote new activities and inform families at nearby schools
Next Steps:
- Explore cost reductions to support families in deprived communities
- Consider partnerships with Play and other agencies to develop further holiday provision
