School Games Mark
What is the School Games Mark?
The School Games Mark is a government-led award scheme. It celebrates schools’ commitment to developing competitive sport within their school and community. Schools in England are able to assess themselves across Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum levels of the Mark.
How to Apply
All registered schools are able to apply for the Mark. To help with the application process, it helps to build up a file at the beginning of the year to show evidence of what you have done in your school.
As soon as the criteria for 2025-2026 is available, it will be shared with schools and available on this page.
The application window opens on 29th April 2026 and closes on 31st July 2026.
If any Chester school requires any assistance with planning for their School Games Mark for this year, please do contact us.
Useful Guidance
To help with your preparation for the School Games Mark, guidance will be released later in the term. It will be shared with schools and available on this page.
School Games’ Website
The School Games website is essential, as this is the website used to apply for the School Games Mark. Here you will be able to access a lot of useful resources, you can record your intra school competitions / festivals, and access and complete your Inclusive Health check.
Koboca
The autumn and summer terms are a great time of year to survey the children to find out a little bit more about how they get to school, what sports they like to play, are they in a community club etc.
Across Cheshire and Warrington we have designed a survey for school children to answer these questions. Split into key stages, the questions are child friendly, age appropriate and easy to complete.
As a school you will be able to immediately see the results which can help you to plan for the year ahead. Only your school will be able to see the names of the children.
At high school you can easily send out a link to the survey as homework for the children.
By using the survey you are able to gain valuable evidence for the School Games Mark such as tracking the 30 minutes of activity within and outside of school for the recommended 60 Active Minutes. You are also able to find out which of your children are inactive and what sports they want to take part in. This will help you to engage your least active children.
Schools need to register on the Koboca website and select Chester School Sport Partnership as your area. There is no need for you to purchase a license for the website as we have done so for all our schools.