On Thursday 17 October 2019 Priestley College hosted a “This Girl Can” festival for the less physically active girls within the Warrington area as part of the national School Games Programme. The girls were introduced to 3 different sports throughout the day, Tag Rugby Union, Futsal/Football and Kin-Ball and had the opportunity to develop new skills and play games around the 3 different sports.
The emphasis of the festival was based on skill acquisition and the development of other skills including communication, teamwork and leadership. Everyone rotated around all three different sports throughout the day to ensure they participated in all the activities. The 3 different sports activities were run by Year 2 Priestley College students who had been trained to deliver the sessions as part of their courses. All schools were asked to do pre event and post event questionnaire and the results of this survey are as follows:
- 80 percent of the schools attending the event completed the pre and post event questionnaire
- Over 50 percent of the girls participating in the event had never represented their school before at an inter-school sporting/physical activity event.
- When asked how the girls were feeling at the beginning of the day, 6 percent of the girls indicated they were anxious about the day, 5 percent indicated they were okay about the day and 9 percent were confident about attending the festival. The remaining 80 percent of girls indicated they were excited to very excited about the whole event!!
- When asked how they felt at the end of the event, 100 percent specified they felt more confident about participating in physical activity and sport than they were in the morning. When asked what they most enjoyed about the day, the biggest areas highlighted included making new friends, playing new sports/physical activities and developing new skills. Only 2 percent indicated they enjoyed winning as a priority.
- When asked if they would all like to do another “This Girl Can” festival, 100 percent indicated they would like to come back and participate in another event and they have given the School Games programme some ideas about what they want to see at the next event.
Many thanks to the 39 leaders (54 percent of whom were female) who completed the training and ran the events throughout the day. It was commented on by a variety of school staff how good the students who led the activities performed and the quote below shows the staff appreciation.
“Thank you to the students who made the day so much fun! They were patient and encouraged the children to be so confident with each game.” Oakwood Avenue Staff member
Thank you to Danielle Blakeman from the University of Chester who also helped out on the morning of the event and finally a great deal of thanks needs to be expressed to Danielle Toward and the other Sport Priestley staff who all helped out on the day.
Look out for more information about the next “This Girl Can” event and if you want any more information please contact Colin Grady.