Batley primary school ‘highly commended’ in national School Games Impact Awards

Batley Parish CE Junior, Infants and Nursery School was recognised by the scheme, which is designed to celebrate the impact achieved by young people, after utilising the 2022 Commonwealth Games to inspire long-term educational and cultural learnings in their pupils.

Together with their local School Games Organiser, the school developed a CWG22 initiative throughout last year’s summer term, which placed Perry, the mascot of the games, which were held in Birmingham, and the Commonwealth nation of Samoa, at the forefront of their pupils’ minds, and to help encourage those children who were least engaged to participate in both lessons and sport.

Pupils learnt about the Samoan culture, religion, sport, history, geography, cuisine and dance, and children who had historically struggled with homework were involved in research relating to the country and produced amazing facts, figures and pictures.

A spokesperson for the school said: “Every child was engaged in some aspect of the programme, be it from a sporting or educational perspective. A Twitter account (@PEBatleyParish) was created to capture the impact and the interest the initiative generated was phenomenal.

“Team Samoa and Perry’s influence within the community, and on pupils, surpassed expectations, with pupils and parents alike requesting Perry’s support for an evening or weekend to do an activity with them.

“Throughout the course of the programme, school staff noted that nothing had previously held the pupil’s attention as this initiative had over the course of the term, and that Perry helped pupils to learn and stay on task in lessons.

“And it’s safe to say the legacy has lived on. We have continued to fly the ‘offering a wide variety of sporting, physical, health and wellbeing opportunities to all their pupils’ flag this school year.”