School wins first gold award for Midlothian

A Midlothian primary school has become the first in the area to win the national sportscotland Gold School Sports Award.

Pictured (l-r) are: Jennifer Allison is pictured with staff, pupils and and Michelle Bone from sportscotland.

Lawside primary, in Mayfield, is one of only 104 schools to achieve the accolade.

At a special assembly, acting head teacher Jennifer Allison congratulated pupils and staff, including active schools co-ordinator Carolyn Cameron and PE Teacher Enrique Castillo.

She said: “What a fantastic achievement, especially when you consider there are more than 2500 schools in Scotland.

“The Gold award is testament to how hard everyone has worked and just how much we recognise the value of sport and physical activity for our learners.”

The school consulted with parents, carers and pupils on priorities, and the response was for more sports and physical activity opportunities, to support wider achievement. Lawfield then worked closely with Active Schools to address any barriers to participation and to make sure all pupils had opportunities to be active, inspired, and enjoy sport.

The school’s commitment to sport includes: full-time PE teacher, two hours of PE for each class, arefully planned Active Schools clubs programme to ensure a variety of sports/activities on offer and clubs were provided for all age groups, from P1 to P7, increased funding for lunchtime and afterschool clubs so that all clubs are free to pupils and an increase in the number of local club coaches delivering clubs and curriculum tasters in school to build on school-club pathways

Physical development sessions for P1s were also developed along with and expansion of the pupil sports leadership team to include the Junior Active Schools Co-ordinators (JASCs), a leadership programme which was created by the Head Teacher.

In addition:-

• Increasing the number of interschool sport competitions/events/festivals attended

• Joining an interschool football league

• Organising Olympic athlete visits to inspire pupils

• Recruiting more volunteer deliverers from amongst the staff

• Celebrating pupil achievement

• Recognising the contribution and commitment of volunteer deliverers