Over 50% of schools across the country are now engaged with the prestigious national award from sportscotland in recognition of their commitment to putting sport at the heart of the school ethos.
Funded by the National Lottery, the sportscotland School Sport Award is presented for innovation and achievement in delivering school sport and physical activity, as well as encouraging sporting links between schools and communities around them. There are now over 1200 schools in Scotland engaged in the award, across all 32 local authorities.
Over the course of this academic year (2024/2025), 361 schools across Scotland have received a gold award; with 144 awarded silver and 62 awarded bronze. With 1285 (52%) of schools in Scotland having now signed up to the award, it only highlights the value that it holds for primary, secondary, combined and ASN (Additional Support Needs) schools and how integrating sporting into school life is more important than ever.
The Award puts a big emphasis on providing schools the opportunity to focus on continuous improvement and self-evaluation. The online self-assessment tool supports schools to achieve this by helping them to reflect on their current practice and identify areas for improvement. It also puts the young people in the school at the forefront of the decision making and implementation processes around sport in their school.
The Award is strongly supported by the Active Schools Network, a programme that involves sportscotland working in partnership with all 32 local authorities to encourage schools to ensure there are opportunities for all children and young people to engage, participate and reach their potential in this area. The School Sport Award provides a framework for all schools to be recognised across gold, silver and bronze levels and to enable the Active Schools networks and schools to work effectively together.
Chief Executive of sportscotland, Forbes Dunlop, said: “The importance of sport in school life cannot be underestimated and being awarded a sportscotland Gold School Sport Award is testament to the hard work and effort of pupils, teachers, and volunteers across a school.
"The number of schools now engaged in the award is a true reflection of the value that sport has in school life, and it is fantastic to see this number grow and grow each year."
As the national agency, working with our partners in local authorities and governing bodies of sport, we are continuing to strengthen the links between school sport, club sport and physical education, which not only benefits young people by providing more opportunities but also helps schools continuously improve and celebrate the successful school sport models.”
Bo’ness Academy, in Falkirk, were previously awarded the Gold School Sport Award two years ago and their submission this year for re-certification is a great reflection of how they have worked on their action plan over the last two years, achieved what they set out and continue to look forward to developing new areas. This time around all the cluster primary schools have been achieved a gold award as well.
Stephanie Dawson, Active Schools Coordinator with the Bo'ness Cluster said: “Within the cluster, we have adopted a cluster-based approach due to the close proximity and strong relationships we have between our high school & 4 primary schools.
The sportscotland assessment tool gave us a great basis to work from and kept us on track throughout the year to ensure we were meeting all of the necessary criteria needed to get gold. We are absolutely delighted to have achieved a full cluster of Gold Awards. A massive thank you has to go to all the staff from each school who put so much hard work, dedication & commitment into achieving these awards. Now we plan on maintaining our hard work over the next 2 years to ensure Bo'ness stays gold for the foreseeable future!"
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