Sport, Health & Fitness
The purpose of our Sport, Health and Fitness programme is:
Sport, Health and Fitness develop skills for life – from collaboration and courage to kindness and compassion. But most importantly it should be fun and enjoyable for everyone – whether competitive or not. The physical benefits of Sport, Health and Fitness are well documented, a recent Cambridge University Study also highlighted the academic benefits and, just as importantly, the mental and social benefits of taking part in regular physical activity.
As a sporting school we are very much driven by values, not results. We value and reward commitment, optimism, tenacity and enthusiasm – characteristics that all of us can learn and demonstrate. Society teaches us that results and beating others are the sole measures of sporting success; we think learning to work as a team, inspiring others, enjoyment, overcoming adversity, making memories or achieving a personal best are just as important. It is vital to us that our pupils leave Solihull as good people with a social conscience and a consideration for others.
Every pupil will have the opportunity to represent our school; on average each pupil in our Lower School and Middle School played twenty fixtures last year. Every pupil will play at least half a game when selected – no one will be left on the bench!
High performance at Solihull is ‘Doing the best you can, with the resources you have got in the moment you are in’; it is about taking risks, but being kind to yourself and others when those risks do not come off. We encourage all our pupils to be the best they can be – that may range from performing a forward roll for the first time to mastering a drag flick in hockey. Many of our pupils aspire to compete at the highest level; we aim to provide a challenging environment so that they all have the opportunity to be successful – that is our job as teachers! We provide innovative coaching, mentoring, athletic development training, a Mental Skills Project, onsite physiotherapy and lots of energy and encouragement for all our pupils.
Each year group has a two-hour Sport afternoon with a wide variety of activities on offer from Hockey, Netball, Rugby, Athletics and Cricket to Zumba, Badminton, Sailing and Clay Pigeon Shooting. Our Health and Fitness lessons are timetabled for all pupils from Thirds Form to Upper Fifth with an emphasis on developing knowledge of physical literacy, co-operative learning, dance, gymnastics, swimming and Games for Understanding (TGfU).
We are fortunate to have excellent facilities at Solihull, including three all-weather pitches, sports hall, swimming pool, fitness suite, dance studio, cricket nets and acres of fantastic fields, maintained by our first-class grounds team.
Sports Scholarships are available at 11+ and 16+ for children with a love of sport, a desire to improve and help others, an outstanding attitude and the ability to stand out from the crowd when performing.
Our Sport, Health and Fitness Department is overseen by our Director of Sport, Health and Fitness, Mr Steve Thompson (thompsons@solsch.org.uk), Head of Health and Fitness, Mr D Brotherhood (brotherhoodd@solsch.org.uk ), and Head of Academic Physical Education, Mrs Danni Wana (wanad@solsch.org.uk ).
Further details of our sports fixtures can be found on our sports website www.solihullsport.co.uk
SPORTS TOURS
Touring gives our pupils the opportunity to explore different cultures, gain independence away from home and make lifelong memories. Younger year group tours tend to be short haul to various popular European destinations; our October half term hockey tour to Holland is always popular, in 2022 we took 150 children. Older age groups travel further afield every other summer, recent tours have taken pupils to South Africa, Barbados, Sri Lanka and Australia.
our approach
Our Health and Fitness curriculum is designed to have a pupil centred approach. The curriculum is a hybrid of models: values driven, concept based, and an activity led approach towards Physical Education.
The aim of the curriculum is to place the pupils at the heart of the learning, developing skills such as Leadership, Peer Coaching, Collaboration, Problem-Solving and Decision-Making, whilst focussing on the importance of health-related fitness knowledge. This contemporary curriculum design allows for pupils to develop skills and abilities that are transferable not only to other sports, but also all areas of life.
Please click through to our individual sport pages for an insight into each sport: