1400 young people get set to compete at Black Country School Games

• The Black Country School Games Summer Festival will see over 1400 young people, from 80 Black Country schools take part in a range of sports on Friday 23 June
  
  
• 200 young leaders and volunteers will make up the workforce organising and delivering the programme.
  
  
• The School Games will provide the backdrop for the launch of the Active Black Country Strategic Framework encouraging people to get active.

The Black Country School Games Summer Festival takes place on Friday 23 June, 9.20am – 3pm, at the University of Wolverhampton, Walsall campus. The Festival will see over 1400 young people from across 80 Black Country schools taking part. Over 200 young leaders and volunteers will make up the workforce organising and delivering the events programme.

The Festival is the grand finale of a 6 month programme and includes 10 sports, an opening and closing ceremony and a variety of sporting events for all ages. Schools have been competing over the academic year to win their regional competitions and qualify through to the event. This year’s games will also see the event raising money for the charity ‘Smile for Joel’ whilst the Wolverhampton, Walsall and Dudley Schools will be looking to regain the ‘Joel Richards Black Country Schools Games Festival Cup’ from the 2016 winners, Sandwell.

James Topham Chair of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) said:

The Black Country School Games is a fixture in our schools annual sporting calendar and all our pupils look forward to the culmination of a year of competition in school. The Black Country School Games showcases the energy and passion young people have for sport, leadership and competition and we look forward to seeing these young people participate in our Summer Festival.”

The School Games will provide the backdrop for the launch of the Active Black Country Strategic Framework which aims to ensure that everyone, regardless of age, background or level of ability feels able to engage in sport and physical activity.

The Framework will invite partners to sign up to a Call to Action. This includes:

• Work together for an Active Black Country adopting the Framework’s principles and values.
• Focus on more people getting active.
• Champion physical activity’s social and economic impact.
• Work with residents and audiences to understand barriers and solutions.
• Aligning and generating resources and investment.
• Develop and skill the Black Country workforce.

The Active Black Country team will work with those partners who sign up to, and embed, this Call to Action in everything they do.

Deborah Williams Active Black Country Chair said:

What better place could there be to launch the Active Black Country Strategy Call to Action than looking out across the Black Country School Games and witnessing young people taking part, working as teams and enjoying being active. The focus of our Strategy is a Call to Action to partner organisations to work with us to address inactivity and inequalities, work with communities to understand their barriers and motivations and to align and source new resources. As the School Games clearly demonstrate, we can achieve our ambitions by working better together across the Black County.”

To find out more about the annual Black Country School Games visit https://www.activeblackcountry.co.uk/i-am-a-school/school-games/

The Active Black Country Strategy 2017 – 2033 will be available to download from Friday 23 June at https://www.activeblackcountry.co.uk/insight/strategies-and-plans/

ENDS