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Curwen School wins prestigious national school sport accolade

Curwen Primary and Nursery School have achieved the Platinum School Games application. They are one of only 104 schools to have achieved this, making them one of the first schools to ever achieve this new fourth level of the award! 

Curwen Primary and Nursery School have become one of the first schools in England to win a new national award for making a commitment to develop its students to be the best they can be in competitive school sport.

This is a government led awards scheme launched in 2012 and administered by national charity the Youth Sport Trust, which had close to 9,000 applicants this year. Its aim is to reward schools for a commitment to the development of competition across schools and into the community.

Participating in this process allows schools to evaluate their PE provision, grading them either bronze, silver or gold, and assists schools in developing an action plan for future progress. The Platinum Award is the new fourth level of the award scheme, introduced earlier this year to celebrate schools who had shown consistently high-levels of enthusiasm and commitment to school sport. Applications are only open to those schools who achieved five successive gold awards.

To achieve the gold award a school must meet a certain set of criteria, which includes engaging a high percentage of young people in both curricular and extracurricular activities, participating in a minimum number of competitions across different sports, and reaching out to target groups including young leaders, volunteers, and those previously identified as the school’s least-active pupils.

Paul Harris, CEO of The Tapscott Learning Trust  and Executive Head Teacher of Curwen said, “We are incredibly proud of the work that our sports team are doing. This award shows the high level of work and commitment the school has in this area and is an amazing achievement. Building on this and the work  across our Trust we are enabling all of our pupils to engage in high quality PE and sports sessions  and to offer them opportunities to get involved in competitive sports. We have long recognised the need for this at primary school level and as part of our work have now developed a Sports Hub with the intention of offering our expertise and support to other schools across Newham and other local areas to develop this essential part of our curriculum”.