HI, I am based in Swindon and we run two large sports days per year called 'Access Activity Days', we use these as a way of encouraging young people to try different sports and then seek to join local clubs, but also use the days as a way of showing what sports can be accessible and suggest school staff take these ideas back to schools to integrate into their PE curriculums and sports days.

We have sports on offer such as;

Croquet, archery, wheelchair football, wheelchair basketball, seated and standing dance, seated zumba / rockbox, boccia, table tennis, table cricket, table football, martial arts, boxing, parachute games, random run - a kind of orienteering course using cones with numbers on where children follow the numbered course, goal ball, sprint races, foam javelin, discus, ball throw, hockey goal, and at outside events we have a range of accessible bikes.

Some of these activities require specialist equipment, but others not. We have good links with the council accessible sports coach, who is often able to lend equipment to schools for short periods of time, such as sports wheelchairs, boccia kits and at times offer some coaching. Do you have a similar link in your area?

For sports days at school I often look at what events the school have planned and then adapt them. So egg and spoon, is a ball in a sieve for some of my wheelchair users, sack race for my wheelchair users is still legs in a sack, but have to be on lowest electric speed and if self-propelling have to do a repeated long push and release hand motion. For my less coordinated but walking children, we remove the base of the sack and walk in the sack with small mini steps.

I do have plans this summer to have a meeting for SENCO's or PE leads to get together to share good practice and ideas for sports days, to ensure that more children are integrated. I totally agree that sometimes the activities need to be different, and this practice works well for the secondary school where I am based. we do an alternative cross country course, where each child gets points that goes towards the house groups overall cross country score. We also do alternative athletics sessions over several weeks, that builds points to feed into the schools sports days point system. Therefore all children contribute to their school house points and feel a valued part of the sports day.

thanks Emma

What a range of activities suggested. Useful all year as well as sports day. I've used individual  challenges. Ie how many  bean bags inside the target today and next time. How far will one push take you in wheelchair. Can you increase on this.?

The loveliest inclusive action I have seen was when all the year 6 in the sports day running race linked arms and ensured a boy with downs syndrome completed the race together .