Rowing

Indoor Rowing brings all the powerful benefits of water-based rowing directly into the school environment, making the sport accessible, engaging, and flexible without ever needing to step onto the water.

Indoor rowing machines and rowing-inspired physical activities deliver the same physical literacy, building strength, endurance, rhythm, and coordination in a safe, indoor setting accessible to every school and every child.

Students train and compete together as a unified crew, fostering strong social connections, mutual trust, and a true sense of belonging.

Rowing is about so much more than just strength and fitness. In the School Games offer, participants rotate through active crew roles such as Crew Captain, Strategy Lead, Motivator, Performance Analyst, and Equipment Manager, building real-world leadership, confidence, and problem-solving skills.

Rowing also celebrates inclusion and diversity in the sport. The indoor format is fully adaptable for all abilities, ensuring success is measured by effort, personal improvement, teamwork, and positive behaviours alongside performance.

Moving Together: Built on rhythm, timing, and controlled movement, rowing develops foundational physical literacy - including balance, coordination, agility, core stability, and endurance.

Working as a Crew: Participants operate collectively as a crew, learning to communicate, build trust, solve problems, and encourage one another to foster a strong sense of belonging.

Shared Leadership and Roles: Everyone rows and leads by rotating through distinct crew roles - such as Crew Captain, Strategy Lead, Motivator, Performance Analyst, and Equipment Manager - developing decision-making, character, and practical life skills.

Inclusive and Personal Best Focus: Success extends beyond winning or speed. The format recognises effort, personal improvement, teamwork, leadership, inclusion, and fair play, ensuring young people of all confidence and ability levels can participate meaningfully and feel valued.

Primary formats

The Primary Rowing Festival delivers inclusive, rowing-inspired challenges for Key Stage 2 pupils (ages 7–11), building physical literacy, core movement skills, and confidence without requiring specialist equipment or prior experience.

Schools can run the initiative as a standalone event, follow a six-lesson PE curriculum unit, or integrate individual games into regular physical education lessons throughout the year.

The activities focus on teaching children to move with rhythm and coordination, develop teamwork and communication, and build a sense of belonging through shared crew challenges. Designed for all participants, including pupils with SEND or lower confidence, the program uses the THRIVE framework to adapt equipment, space, rules, and roles so every child can contribute.

Events are set up as a carousel of six challenge stations where crews of 4-10 students spend 12-15 minutes per station.

Success is evaluated on personal improvement, effort, fair play, and collaboration, with celebration awards given for achievements like Spirit of the Games and Most Improved Crew rather than for being the strongest or fittest.

Challenge stations included:

• Crew Sync: Directional movement game following the Cox's calls
• The Cox Challenge: Pairs guide each other through an obstacle course
• Crew Rhythm: Parachute game to practice moving together in sync
• Balance the Boat: Team balance challenges on a bench, mat, or hoop
• Beach Sprint Relay: Relay race with a rowing-motion shuffle on a bib
• Rescue Mission: Team course to carry beanbags safely to a rescue point
• Row Together: Seated sliding exercise emulating a synchronised rowing stroke
• Shipwreck Treasure Hunt: Bum-shuffle challenge to collect treasure from a central island

The Primary Rowing Festival uses fun, adaptable team challenges to ensure every child, regardless of ability or experience, can build confidence, develop movement skills and enjoy success together.

Secondary formats

Our Secondary Rowing format is based around our Crew Challenge. The Crew Challenge brings an inclusive, team-based indoor rowing experience into secondary schools to champion physical literacy, develop leadership, foster social connections, and support the School Games ambition of personal bests. Success in rowing is defined beyond physical winning as we reward effort, personal improvement, teamwork, inclusion, and positive behaviours.

The event is organised as a carousel festival featuring six activity stations, a Team Relay Finale and a celebration/awards ceremony.

Challenge Stations included:

• Sprint Challenge: Individual timed sprints (250m for Years 7–8, 500m for Years 9–11)
• Team Relay: Crew relay over a chosen distance (1,000m, 1,500m, or 2,000m)
• Beach Sprint Challenge: Combined running and rowing relay challenge
• Team Pursuit: Strategic head-to-head race over longer distances (2,000m for Years 7–8, 4,000m for Years 9–11)
• Watt Challenge: Maximum power test measuring average watts output
• In Sync Challenge: Synchronised rowing focused on matching rhythm and stroke timing
• Circuit Breaker Challenge: High-energy loop combining exercise stations with 500m rowing intervals

The Crew Challenge is inclusive and open to all, as students can take on different roles throughout the challenge. Students actively lead, score, and officiate stations, rotating through practical crew roles including Crew Captain, Motivator, Strategy Lead, Equipment Manager, and Performance Analyst.

Points are awarded for performance, alongside bonus points for Teamwork, Leadership, Inclusion, and Fair Play, concluding with awards celebrating effort and improvement.

SEND formats

The British Rowing Crew Challenge format is adaptable and accessible for SEND settings, ensuring that every student can participate meaningfully and experience success regardless of their ability or sporting background.

Built around a framework which focuses on tailored, holistic, inclusive, varied, and empowering activities, the format allows educators to adjust task distances, timings, equipment, and exercise intensity to suit individual needs.

To directly assist schools and SGOs, the programme integrates with the SEND Inclusion Toolkit co-created by the Youth Sport Trust and National Disability Sports Organisations (NDSOs), providing practical guidance and strategies for key impairments.

By also emphasising non-physical leadership roles such as Crew Captain, Motivator, Strategy Lead, Equipment Manager, and Performance Analyst and awarding points for teamwork, inclusion, and personal bests, the format creates diverse opportunities for achievement and belonging in any learning environment.

Equipment needed

Secondary

• One to four rowing machines
• Stopwatch or rowing machine monitor
• Cones or floor markers
• Results sheet
• Pen or pencil
• Exercise mats and benches

Primary

• Cones or floor markers
• Hoops
• Mats
• Parachute
• Soft ball
• Bench
• Beanbags
• Rope or pole
• Bibs or floor sliders