Greater Manchester School Games

The School Games is a national Youth Sport Trust programme that inspires young people to be physically active for life through positive experiences of daily physical activity and sport.

The School Games consists of four unique types of competition: intra-school competitions, local inter-school competitions, county provision/offer, and the School Games National Finals.

Vision: The School Games will make a clear and meaningful difference to the lives of children and young people.

Mission: Putting physical activity and sport at the heart of schools and providing more young people with the opportunity to compete and achieve their personal best.

The School Games supports children and young people by:

• Encouraging all young people to achieve their personal best, supporting the wider development of young people. Also by instilling the School Games Values of passion, self-belief, honesty, determination, respect and teamwork; it supports schools to achieve their broader whole school objectives.
• Inspiring all young people to be physically active for life through positive experiences of daily physical activity and competition.
• Creating opportunities linked to sport, competition and physical activity that all young people will enjoy.
• Supporting the wider development of all young people, helping to remove barriers to participation through targeted interventions that seek to improve access for those with the greatest need.

Greater Manchester School Games Network

The Greater Manchester (GM) School Games Network consists of 22 School Games Organisers (SGOs) that represent all ten boroughs of Greater Manchester and is supported by GM Moving.

Collectively the network aims to inspire children and young people to have the confidence, competence, and knowledge to reach their potential to live a healthy and physically active life.

The Network works collaboratively to create an offer across the city region that meets the needs of the young people who need it the most. Local opportunities, at the intra and inter levels of competition of the national program are delivered by the SGOs.

The Network is committed to ensuring that all young people in GM are given the opportunity to experience the School Games in a way that suits them. More importantly, it aims to inspire them through positive experiences so they stay active beyond their school sporting experiences.

In order to do this the Greater Manchester programme in the 2022-2023 academic year will be built around following outcomes:

• To grow the Active Partnership/Pupil Referral Unit group in order to provide more opportunities for vulnerable young people
• To grow and support the SEND calendar using Panathlon across the region
• To expand on the secondary work to be broader than just transition
• To continue and grow the Commonwealth Games legacy by providing opportunities for young leaders and support boroughs with their activity legacy plans and leadership work
• To support and enable School Games Officers across Greater Manchester to continue to work with targeted groups and those facing inequalities
• Support and promote the advocacy of the School Games across Greater Manchester.

These outcomes have been identified through national directive and insight, combined with local intelligence, which indicates that these young people may have had less opportunity to experience the School Games, or positive school sport, before.

The School Games in action

The Greater Manchester School Games Determination Festival took place in October 2022 with 13 schools across 10 boroughs involved. The festival, at Graystones Action Park in Salford, supported year 7 pupils who were struggling to settle into their new secondary school. The festival gave them opportunities, outside the normal school environment, to build their confidence, resilience, and determination through physical activity.

Summer 2023 saw the Greater Manchester School Games' first alternative provision and pupil referral unit multi-sport event (see video right). The multi-sport event was the culmination of 12 months of work by Greater Manchester Moving's Active Children Lead, Jess Simons, and the School Games Organisers across the city region. It saw 70 pupils attend from 10 settings and was delivered alongside six partner organisations.