Commonwealth Games 2022

The Birmingham School Games is a city-wide celebration of school sport and physical activity – keeping competitive sport at the heart of schools and providing more young people with the opportunity to compete and achieve their personal best. Primarily, it involves intra and inter-school sports events that are delivered by Sport Birmingham and the 11 School Games Organisers. There are festivals in over 25 sports, including many sports included in Birmingham 2022, which are fully inclusive and include a large number of para events for SEND pupils. Our aim is to increase the number of schools involved in the School Games and thus extend our reach to even more young people in the city. School Games events are also a great opportunity for many young people to develop leadership skills through volunteering. The School Games offer is currently focused on providing virtual personal best challenges that school pupils can complete either at school or at home and are focused on improving skills. We are also placing a bigger focus on leadership and volunteering to equip young people with vital transferable skills.

Sport Birmingham and members of the Birmingham Disability Sports Forum created Birmingham Inclusive Sports Festival to bring families and carers together to celebrate equal opportunity and social action in an inspiring community space. BISF has run since 2013 and is organised and delivered by people with disabilities to raise awareness of inclusive sport, health and wellbeing activities, and to encourage those who would benefit most to try something new.

The Daily Mile Commonwealth Challenge is an operational project comprising two connecting initiatives which inspire and enable primary school children to participate in regular running, jogging or walking.

The two initiatives – The Commonwealth Challenge Map and The Commonwealth Challenge Home Resource – provide motivation, and/or a solution, to two different beneficiary groups; both of whom are enablers to a child’s health and wellbeing.

The Mental Health through Sport Symposium is an annual event delivered in partnership with Newman University, West Midlands Combined Authority and Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust. The collaboration brings together some of the leaders in mental health and sport who are committed to co-creating and co-delivering opportunities to increase the use of sport and physical activity as a means of:

• Preventing poor mental health
• Helping restore and maintain good mental health
• Reducing the stigma around mental health

The symposium offers a platform to share practice and expand thinking in order to build upon national and local movements towards a preventative health agenda, including the topic of social prescribing and examining the increasingly important role of the third sector in supporting individuals experiencing mental health problems. The event is free and open to those who have an interest in making a difference in people’s mental wellbeing through sport; who want to share practice, experiences, learn from others and actively contribute to working together for the benefit of others in the region.

Pathway to Podium is an initiative to recognise and celebrate the commitment of Birmingham schools to PE, school sport and physical activity as part of a more enriched curriculum. The programme has been developed by a range of partners including Sport Birmingham, a group of Head Teachers and senior leaders from Birmingham schools, School Games Organisers in the city and has the support of national partners including Association for PE and Youth Sport Trust.

The initiative will be available from September for all schools across Birmingham and is designed to use the 2022 Commonwealth Games as a tool to increase the opportunities for young people to be active for a minimum of 60 minutes every day (in line with the Chief Medical Officer guidelines). Through the initiative, schools self-assess themselves against a set of criteria that combine to form the pillars of an active school. These criteria fall under the themes of PROFILE, PEOPLE, PLACES, PARTICIPATION and PERFORMANCE.

The School Sport Volunteer Programme focuses on engaging with young people from all backgrounds across the city, and providing them with increased training and volunteering opportunities ahead of the Games. As the Birmingham 2022 missions highlights the importance of championing the youth, the School Sport Volunteer Programme will give Birmingham’s young people the opportunity to develop skills and access a number of training opportunities that will equip them with attributes to enable them to access more volunteering opportunities within their communities and embark on a pathway towards volunteering at the Games and beyond.

Working with a number of key partners in the community, we will expand our reach further and engage with a larger group of young people across the city and inspire them to take up more Games based volunteering opportunities ahead of Birmingham 2022.

Sport Birmingham will be hosting a Volunteer Engagement event to coincide with Volunteers Week running 1-7 June. Our ‘Volunteer Your Way’ event will bring organisations and volunteers together to find out about the power of volunteering and to connect people from across the city. Our event will build momentum for volunteering within the city in the run up, during, and beyond the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. This event will strengthen relationships with clubs, organisations and people, and provide links to volunteering opportunities. This event will celebrate and champion volunteering across Birmingham and provide opportunity to educate about the benefits of engaging volunteers, providing valuable experiences, and developing a flexible model of recruitment. We will showcase the part volunteering plays in providing opportunities for people to upskill, improve mental well-being and gain transferrable skills. Included will be a marketplace for new and existing volunteers to discover new opportunities.