From the spark of an idea in 2018 to the unique school improvement tool you see here now, Creating Active Schools (CAS) has been developed by sector experts and current practitioners to change perceptions and behaviours around physical activity in schools. In a continuous cycle of improvement and refinement, CAS incorporates robust new research and uses insight from teachers and school leaders to increase and improve the physical activity offer in schools.
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CAS forms a whole school behaviour change approach to both increasing & improving physical activity in schools based on research, it offers schools a continuous cycle of improvement & refinement. It incorporates a framework that reflects the need to promote evidence-based practice and to evaluate the “how” and gather further evidence to support the “why”. This emphasises the importance of ongoing evaluation and research to determine which approaches are most effective in meeting the needs of the diverse array of schools within the UK.
The framework started out and remains a systems diagram (Fig. 1) which identifies all the factors that need to be addressed to create a whole school approach to physical activity.
The CAS Framework considers the whole school as being made up of these four key elements: Policy, Environments, Stakeholders, Opportunities.
The current offer to CAS schools is based on supporting them as whole organisations and specifically their CAS lead/leaders to continue to improve/increase physical activity in their school. To do this, the project continues to fund 5 CAS Champions from across the neighbourhoods who have relevant skills and experience and are passionate about CAS. The majority of the CAS Champions are school staff, class teachers, PE leads or freelance specialists and each is funded to have the time out of their substantive post to work with schools to support them in range of ways including – to deliver training & modelling, to develop and offer a range of PA toolkits for use by schools and to support schools in using the profiling tool. The CAS Champions attend network meetings & training themselves to ensure their own up-to-date knowledge & skills and to report back to the Project manager on school progress.
At the heart of the CAS approach is the online profiling tool (launched July 2021). The web portal supports schools to assess their current provision against the four CAS framework themes (policy, environment, stakeholders and opportunities) and subthemes. On completion, the profile tool generates a report which highlights the strength and areas for improvement within their current provision. Schools also receive a summary score for each theme, so they can baseline their current provision and monitor the progress of any future interventions against their school profile.
In 2025, as JU:MP moves into the next phase of it’s rollout, the CAS team is working with schools in the new neighbourhoods of the programme to join the expanding group of schools to ensure a more active environment for children in school. Schools are supported through continuing Communities of Practice & CAS Champion support to provide active play & break times, active learning in & out of the classroom, active travel to & from school, active before & after school clubs & in using the school environment more imaginatively to encourage activity. The onboarding of senior leaders & training for CAS leads has proved critical for the programme to succeed in the long term & this is forming a strong focus in current & future Communities of Practice & in its communication with schools.
“As a school we introduced active enrichment as part of our whole school physical activity offer. We replaced one of our physical education lessons with enrichment to focus on all aspects of physical education as well as the personal development of the child.
Due to high levels of deprivation in the local area, and a number of children attending places of worship at the end of a school day, children don’t always get the opportunity to experience physical activity beyond the school day. We wanted to provide as many opportunities into our school offer, to expose children to different opportunities and experiences to be physically active, in addition to the traditional sports and games we learn and play within PE lessons.
We initially observed sessions at another school within the CAS network and adapted this provision to suit our school needs. We trialled these lessons initially with KS2 and took feedback from stakeholders involved. We then rolled out the provision to the whole school following this trial period and active enrichment became written into whole school timetables and our personal development plan.
Our key stakeholder focus when introducing active enrichment was the children taking part and staff members delivering the initiative. When introducing the new style of lessons, we started with the purpose. We wanted to ensure that all staff and student understood the change and the purpose of this. With the focus being on physical activity, we were taking away the aspect of high stakes competition and making children feel more comfortable with the taking part in new activities which they may not have experienced previously. We started a trial period with KS2 and reviewed the effectiveness of the initiative. We then rolled out to whole school in the 23-24 year. Each term we take feedback from staff and students on the current offer, evolving and changing it over time to provide as many new opportunities as possible for the children and to support the staff to feel as confident as possible when delivering. From feedback, the CAS lead created a one page overview for each of the activities to provide a ‘grab and go guide’ for all members of staff, including safety tips, set up, equipment and potential games and warm up activities – these have been added to and changed as the activities have evolved over time. Children provided their feedback using the pupil voice toolkit to share their favorite and least favorite activities.”
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