Who We Are
The School Games, which is funded by Sport England and delivered by the Youth Sport Trust, involves funded School Games Organisers (SGOs) at a local level and Active Partnerships at a county level working alongside us to create an annual calendar of competition.
Where we started
The School Games started in 2006 as a single annual multi-sport competition - what is today known as the School Games National Finals. In 2010, the School Games was expanded to include more localised competitions, from major county level events to smaller competitions within the same school. As part of this work, the Youth Sport Trust were funded by Sport England to work alongside the National Governing Bodies of sport (NGBs), assisting in the creation of a series of sport formats to help guide the future of school sport competitions. Over the years, the list of NGBs involved with the School Games has grown to 45, with everything from American Football to Wheelchair Basketball events currently taking place around the country.
Since 2010, the School Games has offered 13.4 million participation opportunities for young people, and it is our vision that the Games will continue to make a clear and meaningful difference to the lives of young people for many years to come.
The School Games aims to
- Maintain and grow
school engagement in
the School Games and
their delivery of 60
active minutes
- Create positive experiences
by ensuring physical activity
and competition provision is
designed to reflect the motivation,
competence, and confidence of
young people and has clear intent
- Have a clear focus on secondary schools and transition points (Year 3 and Years 6/7)
- Create positive experiences that
support the character development
of targeted young people
- Advocate to key stakeholders how the School Games makes a meaningful difference to the lives of children and young people, including supporting schools to engage and educate parents.
The team delivering the School Games
- Schools: our schools are integral to the successful delivery of the School Games and we currently have more than 18,700 School Games registered schools taking part in Intra and Inter-school events alongside County Finals every year.
- School Games Organisers: there are more than 450 SGOs who work across the country to support schools in their local area. SGOs have several key roles: to coordinate appropriate competitive opportunities for all young people from Key Stage 2-4, to recruit, train, and deploy a suitable workforce, and to support the development of club opportunities for all young people. Schools can find out the contact details of their local SGO by registering with the School Games website or, if you already have an account, by clicking the 'Log in' button at the top of the page.
- Active Partnerships: these are groups of partners from across the county who help consider the county's strategic approach to the School Games and provide ongoing check and challenge. These groups will look and feel slightly different from county to county, and may be called something else locally.