St Matthew’s High Brooms CE Primary School

St Matthew’s High Brooms CE Primary School in Tunbridge Wells was visited by Kent Sport on Monday 10 December to find out about the primary school sport the school offers their children and young people.

The primary school have received the Gold School Games Kitemark for the last four years, and are planning to apply for the Platinum Kitemark next year. They were also awarded the Silver Kent Sport Active Infants Award for the first time last year for their work with Key Stage 1 pupils. St Matthew’s have their own PE Coordinator, who has been in the role for five years and also has an additional five years of experience working as a HLTA in the school. Mrs Hookway has always had a keen passion for sport and was recently runner up in the Tonbridge PE Sports Personality: Coach of the year 2018.

Mrs Hookway provides the majority of PE lessons and clubs within the school, and also helps provide CPD training for other members of staff to upskill and improve their knowledge of sport and PE. Active Primary Sports coaches also come in to the school twice a week to support and provide cover for PE lessons. This has led to there being a wide range of sports and activities which pupils take part in during school time and in extra-curricular clubs, including: dance, martial arts, football, athletics and many more. The school are also signed up to The Daily Mile and the pupils find it to be a very enjoyable experience at the start of each day.

The school are involved in numerous different events and competitions each year with other local schools, many of which are set up by Kent Sport and School Games Organisers. The school achieved 1st place in the 2018 Summer Finals of the Kent School Games (KSG): Infant Agility, and Year 3 & 4 Sports Hall Athletics events, as well as 1st place in the recent KSG Winter Finals of the Year 5 & 6 Sports Hall Athletics. It’s not just the pupils that are encouraged to take part in sport; there are also staff competitions with other schools which are designed to give teachers the chance to have fun whilst also networking with others.

I am so proud of how far the pupils at St Matthew’s have come in sport. They are honestly so talented, they always work hard, and if you asked them what their favourite subject was, I think most of them would say PE.

Mrs Hookway, PE Coordinator at St Matthew’s High Brooms

This is a good indication of the positive impact sport and physical activity is having on the pupils at St Matthew’s. This has been made possible because of the hard work of the staff and coaches, and also the introduction of the Primary Sport Premium funding a few years ago.

The funding in the school has been spent mainly on new equipment and facilities over the last few years. Some of the equipment is borrowed by members of staff from other local schools, as they have good relationships between schools and try to help each other out whenever possible. The main aim of these purchases were to improve sustainability within the school, as they should last for many years to come.  The Forest school promotes outdoor learning and will be beneficial to the physical and mental development of the children and young people.

St Matthew’s took part in the Sport England Active Lives Survey back in Autumn 2017 and received a full report on the attitudes and behaviours of the pupils regarding sport and physical activity. This report highlighted specific strengths of the school, and also areas of improvement which the school will continue to focus on. Mrs Hookway considers the school to be mostly sustainable in PE provision because of the investments they have made over the last few years, but there are still facilities and training opportunities which the school are planning to provide in the future in order to further improve the experiences in sport for their pupils.