How Unleash Your Drive Helped Sir Francis Hill Primary Take Home School of the Year
It started with a taster day. During Fitness Fortnight, coach Stacey Mitchell brought a golf session into Sir Francis Hill Primary School - and the response from pupils was immediate. "The session proved incredibly popular with our pupils and generated a real enthusiasm for golf," says headteacher Sean Frecklington. Stacey recommended the school look at Unleash Your Drive, the Golf Foundation's mental toughness programme, and after some research, they signed up.
The results have been striking. Across the school year, 357 pupils completed pre- and post-course assessments, with understanding of mental toughness tools rising by 21% and pupil wellbeing scores up 9% - comfortably ahead of the national average. It's this combination of scale and genuine impact that saw Sir Francis Hill named UYD School of the Year at this year's President's Awards.
For Sean, the appeal was always about access as much as sport. "We were particularly attracted by the programme's accessibility and the opportunity to introduce our pupils to a sport that many may not otherwise have experienced," he says. That accessibility extended to staff too - teachers with no golf background found the delivery straightforward. "The online resources and videos are fantastic and incredibly easy to follow. Even teachers with little or no previous experience or knowledge of golf felt confident delivering the sessions."
What stood out most, Sean says, was who the programme reached. "We found that the programme was particularly successful in engaging some of our pupils who can sometimes be reluctant to participate in PE, which made the impact even more valuable for us as a school."
The school isn't stopping here. Sean and his staff want to make golf a lasting part of the PE offer - embedding it within the Key Stage 2 curriculum, building stronger links with local clubs and courses, and giving more pupils the chance to experience the sport beyond the classroom. "Ultimately, we'd love to see more of our children developing a genuine interest in golf and taking it up outside of school."
His advice to any school weighing up whether to give Unleash Your Drive a go is simple: "Absolutely give it a go."
"Winning School of the Year is a huge honour and something we are incredibly proud of as a school. Unleash Your Drive has given our pupils the opportunity to experience a sport that many of them may not otherwise have had the chance to try, and seeing their enthusiasm, enjoyment and engagement has been fantastic. We're excited to build on this success and give even more children the opportunity to discover a love of golf."