Mel - Hub Assignment 3

After School Sports and Life Sessions

This proposal is a new and exciting opportunity for Scripture Union to partner with the Graceworks, the local church and Francis Bardsley Academy in delivering some quality sports coaching open to all year groups which integrates sports and faith exploration on the sports field. Below is the proposal for delivering this in the summer term of this academic year.

Venue

Frances Bardsley Academy sports field/gym

Timings

3:20pm - 4:20pm (1hr session after school) – term time only

Outcomes

I am proposing a 10-week programme that will provide a relevant and good quality sports coaching experience whilst exploring life and faith topics. The programme would invite pupils from the school to attend the 10 sessions, for free, after school that explore themes of faith and life. During this programme the pupils would also be invited to access other events and sessions both within and outside the school setting. This could be the Christian Union running in the school currently, or local fun days/youth groups run by local churches in the area etc. We at Scripture Union are committed to reaching children and young people and giving them opportunities to explore faith. For SU this new project increases the number of children and young people reached through sports ministry and establishes a new mission through a sports-based project within the school setting laying foundations for suture work in partnership with Graceworks and other organisations.

The project would not able to happen without a team of volunteers from the partnership organisations. SU would also commit to training and equipping the volunteers and team in creating the new venture. We would also commit a full-time worker to the 12 weeks to lead the sessions with the team. This team would be made up of volunteers from both SU and/or Graceworks plus an opportunity for churches partnering with the project to send along volunteers to build relationships up with the young people and be equipped through the programme.

The long term aim of this project is to see the churches in partnership with SU and Graceworks run this programme repeating every term for pupils in the school.

Faith

The faith element of the session would tackle basic level faith elements (e.g. the Bible, God, Jesus, Sin etc) and classic bible stories and teaching elements (e.g. Noah, Joseph, Good Samaritan etc) and themes related to faith which would be relevant to their lives as well (e.g. humility, trust, loyalty, forgiveness, honesty, love, kindness, hope etc). We would deliver these in bitesize sections coming back to the topics during water breaks with content that can be built upon gradually. The faith element would mostly be conversational allowing opportunities for dialogue between the young people and encouraging them to come up with their own ideas and explore their own thinking.

Partnership

Scripture Union is a national movement that partners with churches, schools and organisations to help deliver quality youth and children’s work.

Graceworks is a Havering based Christian schools work charity that currently runs the CU in the school and helps with RS lessons and assemblies etc.

Local churches - regeneration church who run a Friday night youth group and Sunday evening church 5 minutes away from the school.

Compliance

SU will lead the compliance side of it which includes:

Risk Assessments will be done for the sessions to ensure that measures to reduce the likelihood of injuries are taken.

Safeguarding- To keep all parties safe the volunteers will

DBS- As part of their Safer Recruiting policy, SU will make sure all volunteers have a current and valid DBS.

Insurance - Scripture Union holds public liability insurance for £5,000,000. If the correct compliance in in place as a above the partnership will come under Scripture Unions insurance for these sessions.

The team will also comply with all existing school safeguarding measures.

Structure of a session

Each of the hour-long sessions will include a 10-minute warm up (including some warm up games) 20 mins of drills and learning skills and techniques about the sport we are doing that week and a 15-minute match. The rest of the time will be broken up with learning about the theme or topic of that week. We will aim to bring out the themes through the sporting activities also. An example of this is if our theme for the week was perseverance, then we would do a drill that would need them to persevere (introduce it practically), then discuss it further. Each week will be a different sport on a rotating schedule.

Review system

In terms of how we would review the individual sessions, we would have short, sessional questionnaires that we could ask attendees to fill out. We would also be evaluating every session as a team in more detail.

Wider than that we would have some key performance indicators to help us say whether the sessions have been a success or not. Examples of these could be:

· The number of volunteers supporting our session

· Girls showing a willingness to engage with faith

· Girls showing an interest in attending future events

· Number of girls that start attending the existing CU run in the school

At the end of the pilot we will then have a different form that the girls would be asked to fill out which would go into more depth about what went well and what didn’t, the structure of sessions, whether or not they liked key aspects of the sessions, whether the sessions encouraged them to explore faith or not and more. The team would also meet as a whole and have a debriefing session discussing how we felt the pilot went, any logistical queries and the feedback received. The school (PE/RS staff members) would also be asked if they have any thoughts/opinions on how the pilot went.

Long term plan/Journey

If the review system is positive then the project will look to continue as part of the school’s regular sports program giving the opportunity to deliver active RS lessons and taking the project to different schools across the borough. We would hope to be seeing young people actively exploring faith and connecting with the church through these sessions too. With the success of the pilot and later scheme we would be looking to explore hosting a non-residential sports camp at the school at a later date.

Finances

In terms of the finances of the project, the cost for the school would be null as we would be asking for use of the school’s facilities (i.e. gym and sports field/4g pitch) for free. This would mean we would cover the cost for the workers and supply all the equipment needed.

London Wide Networks

· LCM (London City Mission)

· LMC (London Mission Collective)

· Illuminate

LMPs (SU Local Mission Partners)

· Graceworks

· Pimlico

· Faith in Schools

· Regeneration Harrow

· Kingsley Hall

Local Missional Projects

· Kings Cross

· The Pen

· West Molesey

· Westbourne Park

· Greenwich YFC

· St John’s Blackheath

The Net (support group for local youth workers)

· regeneration church

· Romford Baptist Church

· Hornchurch Baptist Church

· Havering Christian Fellowship

· Romford Elim

· Immanuel Church

· Rainham Parish Church

· Upminster Methodist Church

· St Edwards CofE

· The Good Shepherd CofE

· Kingsheart Church