Competition and participation in sport are important at St Joseph's. Mr Cook, our PE Leader, organises teams to take part in sports competitions - both intra and inter-sport competitions in support of our Schoolgames Platinum Mark as well as supporting all our PE lessons.

The School Games Mark is a Government-led awards scheme launched in 2012 to reward schools for their commitment to the development of competition across their school and into the community.  Schools in England are able to assess themselves across bronze, silver and gold levels of the Mark.

The purpose of the Mark is to reward and recognise a school’s engagement in the School Games against a national benchmark, and to celebrate keeping young people active. This is reflected through the award levels of bronze, silver, gold, and platinum.

Schools need to demonstrate how they are/have:

• Maintaining and growing your school’s engagement in the School Games and your delivery of the Chief Medical Officer’s (CMO) 60 active minutes for every child or 20 minutes for SEND young people.
• Delivering and engaging in competitions that has clear intent and creates positive experiences based on the motivation, competence and confidence of your young people that need support most.
• A clear focus on transition points (e.g. Yr.3 and Yr.6/7 as well as those in three tier systems) and how secondary schools are engaging in the School Games.
• Supporting the personal development of targeted young people through youth engagement and leadership.
• Advocating and engaging key stakeholders on the value of the School Games to support local provision and improve the experiences for your young people and their families.

St Joseph’s has achieved the Platinum School Games Mark after 5 years of retaining the Gold Mark. We are extremely proud of our pupils for their dedication to all aspects of school sport, including those young volunteers, leaders and officials who made our competitions possible. As part of our application, we were asked to fulfil criteria in the areas of participation, competition, workforce and clubs, and we are pleased that the hard work of everyone at our school has been rewarded this year.