PE Major Award 18/19: Highly Commended – Robert Barclay Academy
Congratulations to Adam Gant, the Head of PE at RBA (Hoddesdon) for winning a Highly Commended Award in this year’s PE Majors.
Adam put in a very strong bid for a wide range of multigym and boxing equipment which only narrowly missed out on the top spot. To celebrate our recent fully-registered charity status, we were able to increase our usual highly commended awards from £1,000 to £5,000 this year. This will go a long way towards replacing some of RBA’s equipment but does leave them with the agonising choice of what to leave out.
In his application, Adam emphasised the wide range of use RBA’s new gym equipment would have including outside athletics and swimming club, Elite Motion (50-80 6-18 year-olds) and local primary schools coming in for a fitness day during Healthy School’s Week.
Amongst RBA’s pupils, Adam argued that:
“The use of the new equipment will instantly raise the profile and awareness of our fitness drive. Pupils will be able to use aerobic and body toning fitness exercises by using the new specialised equipment with the fitness room zoned into specific areas for stretching, cardiovascular, resistance and free weight areas.”
He went on to explain how programs would be written for individuals to help them achieve their goals (e.g. weight loss). There would be special benefit for Pupil Premium students who may struggle to access gym facilities outside of school and girls-only sessions to improve their level of fitness and self-esteem. RBA’s elite athletes would be able to hone their required fitness and strength levels and new Boxercise sessions would be run to help with pupil’s self-confidence and self-control both during KS4/5 curriculum time and after school.
RBA really needed their equipment updating as some of it has seen heavy use for over 30 years and a recent inspection unfortunately condemned some items.
Adam further strengthened his bid by detailing the wide range of pupils the new equipment would benefit from SEND pupils raising self-esteem in their nurture program to a fitness referral program in partnership with the Targeted Youth Support Team for East and Central Hertfordshire. The local community would also have access to the gym through organisations such as BeeZee Bodies which helps families and individuals focus on reducing obesity and increasing self-esteem.
Benefits did not just remain in the realm of PE, however. The science department would bring to life physiological changes in biology and force and motion equations in physics. Maths would also benefit by using the equipment for investigating data-analysis, calculating averages and studying the application of pulleys at A level. These real-life, practical studies help to clarify and embed the sometimes-difficult theory and added a big Effective Learning tick to the application.
We wish Adam and his team every success with their choice of new equipment and hope to see some photographs of it in action soon.