St John Bosco Arts College is a girls’ Roman Catholic secondary comprehensive school in Croxteth, which has a very distinctive Salesian ethos.
We are delighted to partner with St John Bosco as part of the Liverpool RISE Up programme. PE teacher and RISE Up Co-ordinator, Jess Stuttard, talks us through their approach to the programme.
Approach
'Every Monday morning, we have 2 year 9 classes. We have the weekly battle with the usual crowd of getting pupils into PE kit and participating in their PE lesson. We know that this battle is coming, and pupils are likely to give various excuses, some that are believable and some that are not.
We follow our PE policy of having every pupil in their PE kit unless they have a medical note or cannot physically change due to injury. Pupils are given freshly washed PE kit to put on so they can take part in the lesson. This is where the struggle begins..
Pupils find it difficult to get a positive out of the situation, turning this refusal into negative behaviour impacting the learning of others.
This is when we decided to use the RISE Up and Trauma Informed PE programmes as a tool to guide students back in PE kit and participating in lessons.
Intent
To get girls to engage fully in PE including wearing PE kit to ensure PE becomes enjoyable again.
Creating safety
The following year 9 lessons that week presented further behaviour situations. Pupils in these lessons were given time to communicate with staff on their thoughts and feelings of the issues with changing in PE free from judgement.
After some discussion, a lot of pupils' dislike carrying a bag into school with their kit on. There was others who suggested they had lost their locker keys and would store kits in friends' lockers, to find them missing the next time they needed them.
Pupils were told about the safety of wearing kit in PE lesson and that they could wear warmer layers if needed if it was in line with the policy- plain black with no logos on.
That is when the solution of wearing PE kit on PE days came about. I created a KOBOCA questionnaire which was given to pupils to get their feelings about this and measure the impact this solution will have.
Implementation
The findings of the discussion were taken to our line manager who agreed that our year 9 students could now wear their kit to school on PE days taking away the need to change into kit or borrow school kit if forgotten.
This wasn’t new to our year 9 students as they had done this previously during Covid. The solution meant that students felt safety and belonging at the start of the lesson allowing any issues to be addressed, creating a positive environment.
Impact
From the first implementation pupils have had much improved participation levels. Students were given rules about the kit- only wearing St John Bosco PE kit or plain black leggings, shorts, t-shirts and jumpers with no logo on.
Pupils were also told they must wear their school blazer over the top of this. This was especially important when presenting around school and when travelling to and from school.
A few weeks into pupils wearing PE kit to school on PE days pupils were then surveyed again. Most pupils supported the change with only a few not enjoying being in the kit around school after/ before PE lessons.
Pupils had more lesson time, meaning they were active for longer, impacting their mental and physical wellbeing. This approach has helped several children in care and those with English as an additional language.
I noticed a massive impact in a pupil in my class who has had a number of ACEs. She would regularly come to lessons with no kit and would refuse to borrow the school PE kit, which was against school policy. She would then be issued detention and then would not complete this due to her needing to get home or use the time at break and lunch to socialise. This child now seems happier and comfortable in lessons, actively taking part in all lessons week in week out.
I completed an adapted version of the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale to measure my perceptions of students' wellbeing for our Year 9 groups pre and post completing the RISE Up programme.
As you can see from the image, all areas improved.
The RISE Up programme has helped us develop our children's Behaviour, Engagement, Mental Health, Personal development. It has also enabled us to support our most vulnerable children more effectively.
I also completed the School Wellbeing Scorecard pre and post implementation to measure the impact on our provision.
Our provision has increased from 55% to 92% within 5 months of starting the programme. We have improved in each aspect.
Pre
Post
We completed another student voice KOBOCA questionnaire at the end of the school year to understand how successful they think the change was. These are the results:
There was more uptake for the second survey as the first one was completed outside of lesson time to ensure we were getting as much practical as possible after missing time before the kit rule was put into place.
The main takeaways for us were that students are mainly happy with coming in in their kit on PE days, they like the option of wearing all black for PE, and they have a positive start to lessons ensuring as many active minutes as possible.
Moving forward
Our year 9 students are hopefully setting the trend for the kit rule to be rolled out throughout the whole school. Other year groups have questioned why year 9 can wear their kits on PE days but have not.
It has meant that the year 9 cohort can act as role models for the rest of the school. As a school, we are looking to roll this out with other years for the next academic year.
It has also meant the department can set high expectations and routines at the start of every lesson, ensuring better relationships with pupils. We can tell as a department that the feelings and thoughts of pupils are much better about PE.
The only issue that was raised was pupils wearing kits with logos on PE kits which seem to have settled down. We have also now had some St John Bosco jackets approved so pupils don’t have to be wearing any other jumpers.
We want to ensure pupils are looking smart around the building as well as representing St John Bosco in a positive way outside of school.
Thank You Inspirational Teachers
At Future Action, we want to thank Jess Stuttard and the team at St John Bosco who go above and beyond for their young people every single day. We love partnering with them and many similar teachers across the country who show what can be possible in a post-lockdown education world.
We would also like to thank Sport England, Youth Sport Trust and Liverpool Virtual Schools, for funding the Liverpool RISE Up programme and the brilliant team at Liverpool School Sports Partnership.
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Thank you for all you have given to your young people this academic year.
Have a brilliant end to the term and a fantastic summer holiday.
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