VHS Community Fitness Suite

Aim: SPORT ENGLAND are supporting us in converting a self contained studio space into a fully equipped fitness suite!

We are working with SPORT ENGLAND to raise money for the VHS Community Fitness Suite!

 Valentines High School is at the heart of its community.  We have over 1300 students on roll. Over 900 is years 7 to 11 and over 450 in the sixth form.  The school prides itself on its ethos 'in harmony, achieving excellence'.  

As a school we believe in promoting a 'life long love of exercise'.  The fitness suite will ensure we are able to expose our students and staff to a range of activities to help support and enhance this. 

The fitness suite has the following aims:

1. To provide a safe, high quality fitness environment for the school community and beyond:

- Students (years 7 to 13)

- Staff

- The local community

2. To expose the school community and beyond to a range of activities to enhance health and fitness:

- HITT sessions

- Yoga

- Pilates

- Spinning Classes

- Strength and conditioning training

- Boxercise

- Mindfulness 

3. To support staff well-being during the teaching recruitment and retention crisis.

4. To further support our SEND students with a safe and supportive extra-curricular space to participate in high quality differentiated activities. 

We see the fitness suite becoming the hub of health and well-being for the school community and beyond.

Post COVID, there has been a national drop in activity levels amongst people of all ages.  The reliance on devices and the online world continues to present a significant barrier to exercise levels and many of our students only access 1 or 2 hours per week through our PE curriculum.  The Fitness suite is aimed at changing this.

Our staff work incredibly hard and long hours mean that the Fitness Suite would offer a space to work-out before and after school.  We have excellent links with instructors of Yoga, Pilates and other coaches who can utilise the space to run sessions.

The links between exercise and good mental health further support the idea of our fitness suite.  We plan for the fitness suite to be the hub of well-being at Valentines High school,  A place to exercise, meet friends/colleagues and a place to dedicate time to your own mental health and well-being.