What is the ‘Opening School Facilities’ project?
The Opening school facilities project supports schools to hire out their facilities to the local community to enable them to play sport and be more active.
The project also involved listening and learning to what gets in the way of school facilities being used after the school day, at weekend and during the holidays.
This learning will be shared across Gloucestershire to help schools offer more – and more varied – opportunities for pupils and the wider community to be active.
What are the benefits of schools opening their facilities to the community?
There are lots! Allowing your local community to use your school’s facilities can:
- promote parental and wider community engagement
- help pupil attainment through increased physical activity
- support the delivery of after school clubs
- provide a new source of income for the school
- offer a great way of marketing the school to prospective pupils
- bring investment in and protection of sports facilities.
What facilities could our school offer the community?
Some schools may think their facilities are too small to be used by the community, but almost all are able to offer something:
- small hall and theatre spaces, for activities such as dance, Pilates and yoga
- indoor sports halls, for more formal sports such as badminton, 5 a side football, netball
- Multi Use Games Areas, for basketball, netball, tennis and mini soccer and mini hockey
- grass playing fields for junior and youth football and rugby games and training
- artificial Turf Pitches, for all year-round use.
What help can our school get?
We can support your school by sharing useful online resources, as well as providing support specific to your school’s local community. This support can include:
- advice on management and operation
- signposting schools to a number of useful online resources
- providing bespoke support with identifying local demand, management and operation, bookings systems, safeguarding, pricing and much more.
How can we get involved?
Get in touch to discuss how you can get support on opening your school’s facilities.
