Students From Outwood Academy Valley Won The Best Girls Active Group Award

A group of students from a secondary academy in Worksop are celebrating a remarkable national award win.

The students from Outwood Academy Valley won the Best Girls Active Group Award at the Youth Sport Trust’s Girls Active Awards 2020. The awards acknowledge the impact girls are having on their PE curriculum and school sport.

The students had formed ‘The Girls Active’ group at the Valley Road-based academy and the group were praised for being ‘full of enthusiasm to help engage their peers in sport and activity in their school’ upon being announced the winner on Twitter.

Karen Wells, a teacher working with the group, said:

“We are so proud of the students for their win and what they have achieved.

“The girls have been continually amazing during these difficult times to help promote active lifestyles in our academy community. They thoroughly deserve this recognition and I believe they will just go from strength to strength.”

As part of the group’s work, in partnership with the academy’s staff, they have helped introduce new activities to the sports provision available at the academy, pushed for changes to PE kit policy to allow students to feel more confident, and have helped increase participation rates across the entire student body.

A student member of the group said: “We couldn’t believe it when we were announced the winners. It was so surreal. We were all just really excited that it had actually happened.

“It’s been really fun getting more involved with wider issues and the staff have been really supportive of what we have tried to achieve.”

The full list of students involved with the group: Phoebe Marrow, Olivia Bartholemew, Issy Saul, Sienna Lewis, Scarlet King, Annie Robinson, Amy Cocking, Emily Drabble, Sam Wright, Maisy Law, Kacie Morris, and Wiktoria Skowronska.

Since 2015, more than 800 UK primary and secondary schools have been involved in Girls Active. The programme is run by the Youth Sport Trust, in partnership with Women in Sport, This Girl Can, and Sport England National Lottery funding.