Opening School Facilities conference brings partners and the network together

On 15 May the Active Partnerships National Organisation (APNO), along with key partners StreetGames, ukactive and the Youth Sport Trust, hosted an annual conference in Yorkshire to bring the network together to discuss the Opening School Facilities (OSF) programme.

The conference, which was held in Leeds city centre, was attended by representatives from nearly 40 Active Partnerships from across the network, local schools, national governing bodies, and other partners. It provided an opportunity to discuss the programme’s achievements in year two, highlight learnings from Active Partnerships and looked at how the programme could be sustained long-term. The key objectives for year three of the programme were also considered.

As well as an initial introduction from Claire Lee, Strategic Lead for OSF for the APNO, and a welcome speech from Julie Amies, CEO of Energise Me and Board Member for the APNO, the delegates were treated to two fantastic case studies from schools in the Leeds area, highlighting the positive impact that OSF has had on their pupils and the local community.

In the morning and afternoon sessions, there were also several themed workshops with many being led by partners or individual Active Partnerships. These included a workshop on How OSF is Supporting Local Initiatives delivered by Active Humber and Wesport,  Activation of Youth Voice delivered by StreetGames and Partner Collaboration delivered by Youth Sport Trust.

Claire Lee explains the importance of the conference: “We have achieved so much during year two of the OSF programme, and it’s important for us to get together with the national network and national partners, and to share good practice, explore some of the challenges we’ve faced, but also to really highlight the success and the impact of the programme. We also used this opportunity to think carefully about what we want to achieve going forward into year three.”

There were some thought-provoking themes emerging from the conference, which will help the network to plan and deliver year three of the programme and the partnership working and collaboration amongst both Active Partnerships and local partners on the ground was evident.  Rather than being considered in isolation, it was clear to see that OSF is now being used to create links between other programmes and funding opportunities, to help ensure that projects and activities are sustained.

Julie Amies said: “This conference is very useful as it is super important to create time and space for people and organisations to not just be able to reflect on the work they are doing, but also to explore some of the challenges that they might have experienced along the way.

“It’s really important that where we can, we connect our work and I think the joy of this programme is that the national partners have come together with the Active Partnerships Network to bring to bear their skills, their knowledge and their connections, so that together we can ensure that the communities we are trying to serve can truly benefit”.

Jane Shewring, National Director for StreetGames said: “What has been fantastic about today’s conference has been the engagement across the consortium and the partners. As we’ve evolved the conference in the last two years, we have been able to create a much more collaborative event and we have really valued that as an organisation, as we can really benefit from that wider collaboration.”

Alex Lucas, Research Manager at ukactive said: “This annual conference is really important as it gives all of the partners, and especially the Active Partnerships involved in the OSF programme, an opportunity to come together and learn from each other. There are always lots of different learnings that regions can take from one another and so we like to provide this opportunity for those to be shared and also to facilitate the sharing of best practice.”

One of the 39 Active Partnerships that had representatives attending the event was North Yorkshire Sport, and the Director of Operations, Damien Smith, explained how the conference benefits the Active Partnerships: “The OSF conference is crucial, bringing together a network of brilliant people trying to do some really brilliant stuff. It’s great to see everyone, the consortium partners of ukactive, StreetGames, Youth Sport Trust and the Active Partnerships Network, being able to bring colleagues together who are genuinely working together. The word collaboration is used a lot, but there is a genuine feel of that in the room”.

The day concluded with Active Partnerships coming together as regional teams and having conversations to discuss joined up approaches that can then be progressed with thesupport of the network, local partners, the Youth Sport Trust and StreetGames.

For more details about the Opening School Facilities programme, please visit this page.