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Teign School Sports Leaders – Level 2 cohort. This group students were awarded the Outstanding contribution to sports award at the schools annual Pride through success award.

Teign School has this week been revealed as a Centre of Excellence by the Leadership Skills Foundation. The achievement marks a significant milestone for the local school, which has been working on embedding the development of these key skills into its curriculum.

With only 24 schools selected for the 2023-24 academic year from the 2,500 plus that the Leadership Skills Foundation works with annually; the accomplishment is testament to the work of Teign School Physical Education department. Their work within the school and community using the level 1, 2 & 3 Sports leadership qualifications has resulted in a lasting impact across the school’s community, with over 60 students being awarded one of the qualifications and 100’s of primary school students benefiting from sporting festivals and opportunities offered that were led by Teign PE Sports leaders in the past year.

Tom Mercy the schools Centre Course manager and Assistant Department leader for PE said: “We are beyond proud of earning this prestigious accolade, especially being one of the first schools to be awarded this under the new restructuring of the application for process. But it epitomises our PE department and the great relationship with have with our students to earn this status. Without this great relationship to challenge, inspire and provide our students to become great leaders we would not have had the leadership success in the previous school year. We could go on about all the different and successful leadership stories and events we have had and will continue to have. If you want to see snippets of these please do look at our Teign School PE Instagram (give us a follow) for all of the opportunities we have provided.

Teign School’s ethos is about developing the whole person, ensuring everyone has the opportunities to access the best universities and career destinations. By being a centre of excellence means we are giving our students the best possible opportunities to develop themselves to being the best possible versions on themselves.

The Centre of Excellence title is presented to centres that demonstrate a deeply held commitment to developing essential leadership skills in their learners to help them prepare for future education and employment. To be considered, centres must adhere to a comprehensive list of criteria, including: a commitment to effective leadership practices, pathways for leadership throughout the school’s community, fostering a positive school culture, implementing innovative leadership strategies and maintaining high standards of learner performance.

Richard Norman Chief Executive for the Leadership Skills Foundation said: “We are delighted to award Teign School with Centre of Excellence status for the coming academic year. We believe that every young person should be empowered with the skills they need to positively influence their future and their communities. Across the 2,500 centres we work with, Teign School offers an incredible experience for its students to develop essential leadership skills and it is a privilege to work with them. We can’t wait to see how they continue to build on their Excellence status.”

Teign School plans to build on this work by increasing the numbers of students who achieve the sports leader’s qualifications this year. We have also been able to offer the Dance Leadership qualification for a couple of our hardworking 6^th form students who have shown commitment and passion to Dance this year. Our Modern Foreign Language Department have also joined in on the action and are running the Foreign Language Leader award, which is fantastic to have these leadership opportunities beyond PE. Our biggest addition is embedding the PE Life Skills award into our PE curriculum for our lower years students to inspire and prepare them for when they have the opportunity to succeed our current students on the sports leadership pathway.