Barlby High is lead school in Sport England funded project

Barlby High School has been nominated as the Hub School for the Ebor Hope Teaching School Alliance. We are part of the second phase of a project which aims to use physical education, school sport and physical activity to have whole school impacts on achievement, attainment and attendance.

Each school within the project has £2000 to spend although there are limitations on what it can be spent on! Following discussion with PE staff, the pastoral teams and student surveys, three distinct groups have been identified:

1. Students who have anger management issues
2. Students who are struggling with their social, emotional or mental health (SEMH)
3. Students with low participation rates in PE lessons

The PE Department and Pastoral team will be working together to ensure a school wide impact. The PE faculty will receive training to enable them to modify the KS4 curriculum to include boxercise, parkour and yoga/pilates. This will hopefully improve student engagement and improve their physical and mental health. There is funding as part of the project to release staff for training.

500 pupils have taken part in a student welfare survey. These results will drive the schools Mental Health Strategy to ensure our students know where help can be accessed within school and outside and to enable them to be happy, safe and successful in school by improving their resilience, providing them with coping strategies or signposting professional support.

The Pastoral Team will identify target groups and work with them once a week over a six-week period to improve their behaviour and SEMH. Training for the Pastoral Care team has already included Mental Health Training, Mindfulness and Compass Buzz and all staff have had access to online Suicide Awareness Training from Papyrus. Future training will include Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST), Safe Talk, counselling and Emotional Logic alongside boxercise, High Intensity Training (HITT) and yoga/pilates. Research is currently being undertaken regarding the impact of strategies and where additional support can be accessed to train staff but to also support staff and parents.

We are working with seven other schools, including the other four Hope secondary schools, to support them through the project over the next 12 months.