What constitutes "success" for a school sports programme? Exactly what excellent looks like is a vital decision for a school. Until it knows what it is aiming to achieve, it will be impossible to judge whether or not it has been successful. Oddly, the success criteria are rarely, if ever, displayed or communicated around a school, to its parent body, or in its PR materials.
There may be some woolly ideological statement about nurturing the unique talents and interests of each child, but certainly no answers to the complex questions about the importance of winning, and the central axes of school sport: choice v compulsion, performance v participation and team games v individual activities.
Is it more important for the school's top teams to beat local rivals - or for 80% of pupils to take part in 8 or more matches each term? Is it a bigger achievement to produce a school girl international or to have no obese pupils in a school? The answers to these, and many other, questions define the culture of a school and what it values in a sports programme.
The numbers are an essential part of any success criteria. How many children will play in how many matches? How many will voluntarily choose to be involved In the weekend competitive programme? How many will be able to run a mile? What will these numbers be at each age level, and in each sex? How good is good in each of these areas? Only by establishing what is important and how it is to be counted can meaningful future targets be defined.
For example, if participation is important to a school, it might set targets of having 75% of pupils in Years 7 and 8 engaged in the team games programme: it might decide that this should be 50% at Year 9 and 35% at Year 11. An audit of current involvement would indicate the starting point, and would stimulate initiatives to engage more pupils of average ability by making the programme more attractive at these levels.
Schools tend to be successful in the direction in which they are looking. Areas of provision which are identified as priorities will attract attention and development to raise levels of achievement. Defining what is organisationally important is therefore an essential ongoing debate, and should form part of every departmental meeting. Otherwise these will continue to be dominated by administrative details of forthcoming competitions.
What do schools value? Immaculate playing fields, state of the art clothing and equipment: schools do these things really well. Many Independent schools have facilities which could host the Olympic Games. Much time and effort are given to these areas, and the standards achieved reflect that. But the numbers of pupils engaged by the programme, who choose to commit to team games, or to embrace a programme of personal conditioning may be less impressive. A quality controlled programme of inspiring coaching at all levels, in all sports and all abilities is much more rare. And a school that had given thought to this, and clearly displays its success criteria - that is even rarer.
Who sets the success criteria? This should be a constant debate between the Head and the Director of Sport, and subject to ongoing review. Without agreement here, there can be no leadership of school sport. This is the essential 360 degree leadership which seeks to educate Heads of the desirable targets of the games programme. In the absence of agreed alternatives, the default success criteria can become the number of games won and lost. School sport can be so much more than that, but the realisation of its full possibility is not inevitable. It is the result of hours of careful consideration of the question, "What does an industry leading sports programme look like for us?"
