NSW Department of Education Sports Unit: Part 4 of 4 : Breaking Down the School Sports Unit: Policy, Protection, and Practical Solutions

Navigating school sports policy doesn't have to be overwhelming. The final episode of our four-part series with the NSW Department of Education School Sports Unit reveals the practical solutions and expert guidance available to school leaders across the state.

Meet Lucette King, a Sport Policy Advisor with an impressive 30-year tenure in the School Sports Unit. Her extensive experience has positioned her as a crucial resource for principals seeking to untangle complex policy requirements while still providing meaningful sporting opportunities for students. King specializes in finding workable solutions in the grey areas between rigid policies and practical implementation, ensuring safety without stifling student experiences.

The episode tackles several critical areas including unstructured swimming guidelines (which King candidly describes as "deliberately cumbersome" to ensure student safety following past tragedies), updated concussion protocols that remove medical judgment burdens from educators, and perhaps most significantly, a revolutionary new permission system for school sports activities.

This streamlined permission approach represents a breakthrough for schools. Working with legal services, the Sports Unit has established that sports delivered by teachers on school grounds or within the local community can now be treated as "business as usual" – dramatically reducing paperwork and administrative burdens. This solution emerged directly from principal feedback, demonstrating how the unit transforms challenges into practical improvements.

Dr. Sylvia Corish, Executive Director of Student Support and Specialist Programs, provides valuable perspective on the broader impact of the School Sports Unit. She highlights how sports serve as a powerful engagement tool, noting that for many students, "sport is the one thing that keeps them there and gets them to school." This understanding drives the unit's commitment to developing inclusive programs that cater to schools of all sizes and contexts.

Both experts emphasize that the Sports Unit thrives on direct engagement with principals. Whether you're leading a remote school with five students or an urban campus with thousands, their team stands ready with solutions tailored to your unique circumstances. Reach out through their website, email, or phone – no question is too small, and your challenges today might inspire system-wide improvements tomorrow.

Link to NSW School Sports Unit:

https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/curriculum/school-sport

Links and References:

To view our Professional Learning Offerings, visit:
https://www.nswppa.org.au/professional-learning

To view our latest offerings, visit: https://www.nswppa.org.au/catalogue

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to School Sports Podcast Series
• 2:27 Meet Lucette King: Sport Policy Advisor
• 5:44 Unstructured Swimming Activities Guidelines
• 10:30 Concussion Protocols and Policy Updates
• 14:32 New Permission System for School Sports
• 18:22 Dr. Sylvia Corish on Sport Unit's Value
• 23:05 Support Services and Solutions for Principals
• 27:00 Podcast Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Transcript

Drew: 0:00

Welcome back to Professional Learning's the New South Wales PPA Educational Leadership Podcast. It's great to have your company. This podcast aligns to the values of the New South Wales Primary Principals Association, that is, the values of principal wellbeing, principals as lead learners, as well as supporting principals to lead school operations. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe for further updates. Now let's get into today's latest episode. This is the fourth and final episode of a four-part series with the New South Wales Department of Education Sports Unit. There have been so many fantastic takeaways from each of our guests in each episode. Before we conclude, a huge thanks to Andrew Hooper, who is our New South Wales PPA representative for PWSA Sport, who was able to coordinate all of our special guests from the New South Wales School Sports Unit unit.

Drew: 1:01

Now, as I have stated in each of these episodes, if you're listening and thinking, how does the school sport unit align with professional learning? Well, I strongly encourage you to listen back to our previous three episodes, where we covered evidence-based research, science around the brain, alignment with your school excellence framework, the wellbeing benefits of sport and retention, as well as supporting students with disabilities, just to name a few. Our guests in the final podcast series are Lissette King and Dr Sylvia Corish. Lissette King is a sport policy advisor attached to the New South Wales School Sport Unit and is part of the Arts Initiative for the New South Wales School Sport Unit and is part of the arts initiative for the New South Wales Department of Education. Our final guest in this podcast series is Dr Sylvia Corish, who'll summarise, synthesise the key messages and the wisdom from all of our guests. Dr Corish shares insights into the importance of the New South Wales School Sports Unit. Let's start now.

Lucette: 2:10

My name's Lucette. I'm the Sport Policy Advisor attached to the School Sport Unit as part of Arts, Sports and Initiatives.

Drew: 2:17

Terrific, lucette. Welcome to our podcast, where we're focusing on all things sport and, as you said in your title, you are the policy advisor. Did I get that correct? You are the sport policy advisor. Can you tell our audience what that role, what does that role look and sound and feel like for our people listening?

Lucette: 2:42

Okay, I will give it a try. So my role is to support our school leaders and teachers in making sure that all of the opportunities that are provided through weekly school sport are done safely and in a compliant way with all of the department's rules and regs and standards, and then, obviously, the laws as well. So my job primarily focuses on that school leadership support. But then I'm in the background working behind in assisting principals and school leaders to dig themselves out of any difficulties that come up. Principals and school leaders to dig themselves out of any difficulties that come up. In many instances my role is supporting between the black and white. So the policy says this a school principal is perhaps asking to do something slightly different, and how can we work together to get that opportunity in place for the students safely?

Drew: 3:42

Yeah, yeah, really important to unpack that further. So what are the themes that are current in your context, that you're working through?

Lucette: 3:53

The themes come and go. They're a bit cyclical depending on the time of the year. Then we start heading into winter and we'll get concussion and collision sports coming. We get a couple of winter sport questions at that point, where students are representing students are participating in events called inter-school sports, events that have nothing to do with the department and then there is a perennial external providers yeah, so few things to navigate there through in that, in that cycle.

Drew: 4:22

How long have you been in the role for?

Lucette: 4:24

I've been in this role now for six years, but I've been part of the sports unit for longer than most people out there have been teaching. I've been in the school sport unit for 30 years.

Drew: 4:34

Oh wow, Congratulations. What a great achievement, and I'm sure you have seen a lot of changes in that time as well.

Lucette: 4:41

A lot of changes and been privileged to work with some amazing mentors and yeah, so it's the best place in the department to work. I like to tell people Sorry to those listening.

Drew: 4:54

Well, it sounds great and we're going to go further into those topics or those themes, like you said, recording this in Decembercember, nearly the end of the year, two or three weeks to go before the end of the year. Busy time in schools, as as we all know. I'm not saying anything new here. However, the uns tell us a little bit more about some things that are coming through from your perspective.

Lucette: 5:22

On the unstructured swimming, so when you asked me what are the common themes, I kind of did a chunk by chunk timeline of the things that pop up annually. The biggest piece of work that we're doing at the moment is the release of the new permission support. So that's a one-off, but I'll do unstructured swimming first because that was the question that you asked. It's a one-off, but I'll do unstructured swimming first because that was the question that you asked. So the department has a set of guidelines that are in place for schools that are delivering free swimming activities. Those guidelines are designed to almost make it impossible to deliver free swimming. That is not recommended. You can, you can do it, but it would be much, much better to structure an activity. When we look at the educational outcomes of potentially attending a water theme park, I'm hard pressed to tick a box to say what outcomes there are. And all of those activities are unstructured.

Lucette: 6:21

Unstructured swimming is an activity that is not led by a teacher. The student's swimming ability needs to be tested either before the activity takes place or on the day. So that's an added burden, while the supervision of the activity must be undertaken. There's no rhyme or rhythm to how that activity is being conducted. So it was brought in. The unstructured swimming guidelines were brought in following a fatality in the Blue Mountains and it was part of a set of coronial recommendations. So I work with schools to make sure all swimming activities are structured. So we provide novelty events, we talk about ways to make sure that the activity is being led in suitable water conditions, all that sort of stuff.

Drew: 7:12

So what I'm hearing from that is to hasten cautiously is probably potential advice to principals. Listening with unstructured going to, whether it's a theme park or water parks, unstructured is that what I'm hearing?

Lucette: 7:31

yeah, look, it's when we're looking at end of year celebration days. I often tell people that I'm the fun police, but when we look at end of year celebration days, if you are going to a recreational park that is well known and well run and you can limit the location that your activity is going to take place in for example, if you're at one of those massive aquatic theme parks and you can say, right, well, we're just going to have that pocket, that corner, or you've got enough staff attending that you can have someone supervising each one, then maybe you can go ahead. But if you're taking your students to a pop-up aquatic theme park that is perhaps not as regulated and not supervised by lifeguards, then I would be suggesting that there are other types of activities that are just as fun that you might like to consider as an alternative.

Drew: 8:27

Yeah, yeah. So yes, hasten slowly, hence the word hasten slowly.

Lucette: 8:32

Hasten slowly.

Drew: 8:32

Yeah, yeah, interesting. So that's one piece and principals listening, as you said, you're not the fun police, but you're also. You're coming from the place of protection because you, I'd imagine, deal with the aftermath of things that don't go to plan, unfortunately.

Lucette: 8:55

That's right, and that's where the permission resources come into play. There's a specific note associated with every aquatic activity and the unstructured note is three pages long, and that's because you need to tell parents that you're going to test their children and if they don't pass, they're not going to be able to take part in the activity. You need to outline the alternate activities that are on. So it's just. It is deliberately a lot more cumbersome in the administration of an unstructured activity, whereas a structured swimming activity it's just a simple note. We've got the parent reporting parent indicating to us how well their children may or may not swim. Now, that's only a guide. We never, we don't really take parents word for how well their children may or may not swim. Now, that's only a guide. We don't really take parents' word for how well their children can spell or numeracy and literacy, so we don't take it for aquatics either. So it's a guide in planning. And then we're still doing that on water testing to get them started.

Drew: 9:48

Yeah, and is this across the primary sector or is this across both primary and high school sector?

Lucette: 9:56

Both Okay so my role spans the entire network and in many instances I'm also supporting the other education sectors, but it is all the way through from primary to secondary, because all of those education settings take children to aquatic activities. That's right, yeah, so that'll kick off. We then continue to manage support throughout the representative support pathway. We can then come into winter, so then we start hitting the collision sports.

Drew: 10:29

No pun intended, no, no, tell us about that because that was spoken to, spoken by, I should say by, Peter Banks in terms of a professional learning opportunity for concussions and so forth. So is that a space that you're seeing a lot more participation in terms of the professional learning and understanding?

Lucette: 10:50

My word. So when the AIS released their new concussion policies, which were not fit for purpose for the education setting, but the media jumped all over it. So we were moving to respond to media inquiries as you guys were welcoming students in the gates. For the first time the AIS is not an allied health service provider and the department aligns all our advice to the allied health services. We've removed the count of days associated with any kind of concussive injury or mild traumatic brain injury, because we're not medical experts.

Lucette: 11:23

So families have to get medical clearance now for their students, for their children, rather to continue to participate in sport and physical activity. You can imagine, at a state championship that might be a little bit controversial If you've got parents, maybe not even a state championship, you've got parents who think their children are vying for selection and it's been perceived that they've taken a head knock. Those parents are perhaps going to be reluctant to leave and go and get medical clearance. So it's difficult. So we've removed that burden from school teachers and principals. There's a flowchart now that tells you what to do and when to do it, and we've created a reporting tool that you can hand over and say to parents you must go and get this medical clearance, or you can't participate.

Drew: 12:10

And it's good to have that, and I presume that's on the sport unit's website that principals and educational leaders can access. That's right.

Lucette: 12:18

So on the school sport unit website we've got policy and guidelines section in the library of resources. In that section on our website there's a tab called Supporting Tools and Resources, which, for principals that are familiar with the way the whole new policy library is structured, Supporting Tools and Resources are on the left-hand nav. It's the same place in every policy. You click there and it will bring you to all the supporting tools and resources. So when you're on there you can find advice about concussion, about air quality, about water, water quality, what to do if you've got a kid with a broken arm whose mum wants him to play soccer or her to play soccer. What do you do about religious jewellery? Lots of sports say, take your jewellery off. But cultural beliefs so there's lots and lots of just that really nuanced, nitty-gritty stuff that you might only get it once or twice a year and then it slips your mind and you come back to the next intake of children the year after and it bites you on the tail again. So that's all there.

Drew: 13:19

But a really good professional learning opportunity to play out, so to speak, and utilise that as a framework and the learning through what you've done this year through the sports unit with the AIS. What I heard with the concussion rule really shows the year through the sports unit with the ais. What I heard with the concussion rule really shows the integrity of the sports unit and the piece of work aligning with the new south wales department of education processes. So thank you. Firstly, thank you because, um, that is a complex space from what I've just heard of all the media at the start of the, the year going through the concussion rules and then that's that framework that the sports unit have to guide principals, because principals want to, as we all want to, do the right thing to support that and the advice is to go to the sport unit and participate in that professional learning about concussion.

Lucette: 14:12

Yeah, so one of the one of the things that we've done this year that's probably a little bit out of the box while we're always in that professional learning about concussion. So one of the things that we've done this year that's probably a little bit out of the box while we're always in the background. In our supporting capacity, we identified a really easy way to make lives easy, make the life of principals easy when it comes to the collection of permission. So we were getting lots and lots of feedback from schools saying we're not getting parents' permission for sport, or the kids just aren't returning the note, or the kids forget to take the note home and then someone misses out. So we've worked really hard with legal services to and it came about in consultation with the executive principal at Bourke High School.

Lucette: 14:54

So I'll close the gap piece where legal services have agreed to support the notion that support is business as usual, so much like any other key learning area. And because it's business as usual, as long as it's being delivered by teachers low-risk activities on school grounds or within the local community, then there's no permission needed. So a parent notification step is now in place and we've worked with all of the third-party digital platform providers to get those steps up and running. So at the beginning of the year. Now, if you're only running sport on the local setting or within the local community, delivered by teachers, you can hit a button once and you don't have to collect permission again so well.

Drew: 15:42

That is fantastic Great news for principals listening in to ensure again, that is cutting the administration burden and a common sense approach. So thank you, sports Unit, and thank you for those involved in that policy, because it will have a huge impact to lessen the administration burden from the school's perspective, and I can hear principals going yes, there is a solution.

Lucette: 16:10

Those principals that are using external providers may not be going. Yes, so unfortunately, if your school engages with external providers to deliver what is business as usual, you're still going to have that cumbersome process of permission per activity. It's quite a lengthy process and the reason is that external providers bring in that layer.

Lucette: 16:31

They do it should be. Sport and physical activity should be being delivered by the generalist teachers. We've got all the resources there that we need. Hang on. The sports unit has developed all the resources that principals need to support their teachers in delivering sport and physical activity as it aligns to the curriculum.

Drew: 16:49

Well, we've heard that today, in terms of all our leaders, through the sports unit, are able to share just a wonderful amount of resources that are available, and it's just being aware of that as well. So, look within, look within the sports unit. Colleagues, if you are listening and also what I'm hearing is if you are looking, if you are still thinking of external, there's a few barriers there that you need to overcome to ensure that that's successfully delivered but. If you're looking internal. I can hearing principles going.

Lucette: 17:22

Yes, well with internal there's. There's no cost, yes, which is a big thing for public education.

Drew: 17:28

Absolutely.

Lucette: 17:29

And it's also you know. Your release from face-to-faces can be organised within the school setting. You don't need an external provider to come in and get that sorted for you.

Drew: 17:37

Yeah, terrific, so that's a big highlight for 2025. Any other highlights you want or resources you would like to share for our principals listening?

Lucette: 17:49

Not at this point. Just keep watching the sports unit website. There's always new stuff coming out, new resources, new risk assessment support, constantly evolving, constantly moving to help support the changing landscape that schools are juggling yeah.

Drew: 18:07

Sound advice. Thank you, seth. Thank you for your time today. Dr Sylvia Corish, executive Director of Student Support and Specialist Programs, which includes the New South Wales Department of Education School Sports Unit. Okay, welcome to our podcast, dr Sylvia Corrish.

Dr Silvia Corish: 18:28

Thank you, thanks Drew, thanks for inviting me.

Drew: 18:31

Yeah, look, it's a pleasure to have you. In terms of your role in overseeing the sports unit, can you give our listeners an overview of what is your role in the sports unit or what do you see in your current position?

Dr Silvia Corish: 18:48

Okay, so I'm called the Executive Director of Student Support and Specialist Programs. I work, obviously, for public education and with the department. The school sport unit is one small part of what I do. I've got a very eclectic team so the school sport unit is part of art, sport and initiatives and that's a quarter of what my team is. But my background is as a principal, primary school principal, very experienced in that area and a whole range of other things director, managing principals, executive director, managing DELs and then I came into this role as executive director student support, specialist programs and I have the great honour of working up very closely, up very closely with the school support unit and the amazing people, the experts in that team and what they do.

Dr Silvia Corish: 19:38

Now, as a primary school teacher, primary principal, I knew some of their work. My school, my last school, was in the Sutherland Shire, very competitive, had a lot of opportunities for our children and they flourished on sport as all children do. So, coming into this role now and working with the likes of Peter Banks he's the leader of the school sport unit and some of the amazingly committed people that we have Huge range of expertise, huge range of experience, able to provide support for principals and schools very clever at being able to work around situations. So during COVID, for example, state office would come to this team. They would come to this team to ask for advice. They didn't go to their curriculum advisors, they came to the people on the ground who are operational, who knew what to do, who knew how we could work through a very challenging circumstance, and I was very proud and still am very proud to be associated with them.

Dr Silvia Corish: 20:39

They actually make me look good. They are incredibly talented, expert people and you know work above and beyond because they're so committed to what they're doing to make sure that our students have access to sporting programs that are relevant for them, that they're enjoying it and they also have making sure that teachers have capacity building and are confident in the way that they engage, get their students to engage in sport. We know that we have children who come to school because they have a love of sport. That's the one thing that keeps them there and gets them to school. So, regardless of what the motivation is, we want our children to attend school. We want them to attend regularly and if sport is a way that we can encourage some of our students not all to take part in the life of a school and what education has to offer, then the work of this team is really very significant.

Drew: 21:39

Yeah, absolutely Well said. For principals listening and I couldn't agree more with what you've said in terms of the value of what the sports unit brings and, just listening today, in terms of all of the key personnel in the sports unit and what support they can offer for principals listening. What's your advice to principals listening saying I really want to incorporate sport into my context. What advice?

Dr Silvia Corish: 22:15

would you give to principals listening? I would advise them to go to our website. Have a look at what's on the website. Email the officers in the sport unit. Ring them. They will give you good, solid, grounded advice about where to from here.

Dr Silvia Corish: 22:29

Regardless of whether you're a principal in a school with five students or 2,000 students, they have the expertise to provide support, and some of the work that we've done this year that's been quite interesting has come from principals saying I really need help with X. What can we do? So that initiated a whole lot of work, and Peter is very aware of this and Lucette King, luke King, who's very heavily involved In terms of, started from just a germ of an idea. Principal in a remote school. I've got all of these children. It's really hard for me to get permission notes from the parents. I really want them to get involved with sport Sport unit.

Dr Silvia Corish: 23:11

What can you do to help us? Now? That started a whole range of different things, and so the team has worked consistently and very hard and have come up with a whole range of support programs that can help principals in terms of parent permissions, worked with legal to minimise some of the responsibility or some of the you know some of the admin work that comes with, sometimes, students doing sport. So that just came from a principal coming to me and I was at a conference. I was on a panel and he said you know what can you do? It was Murray Cronin from Bourke High School and it grew from there and it's something that's now available for all of our principals, k-12. But that's one thing you know we have largely well, we do. We have largely school-based staff, teachers who know how to do it on the ground. They can provide a very good, solid advice.

Drew: 24:09

Yeah, yeah, and it certainly has come through today, listening in terms of all of the frameworks that operate under the school sports unit, there's so many resources available In terms of from a professional what I'm hearing is a solution focus and also from a professional learning focus as well for principals. Is there any highlights that you know of that you could discuss with us?

Dr Silvia Corish: 24:37

Look, I think that the team is very creative and they're always willing to go the extra mile. Some of the work that they do is really quite incredible the school, the swimming program, for example, and expanding that so that satisfied more needs. The work that we're doing in inclusive education, work with our students with disability, is incredible. Peter and Andrew Fipper, for example, have been talking about another principals conference. That was something that Peter initiated. I think it was last year, I think it was in 2023. We plan to do it again. We're hoping to be able to do it in 2025.

Dr Silvia Corish: 25:14

But bringing together significant players from schools in terms of making sure they understand what we can do in terms of providing support for them. So you know, I don't have a huge team. It's not a huge team, so I can't provide all the support that people would want. But if you come with us to us with ideas, peter will make sure that he works with the team and with his director, geordie Austin, to see what we can come up in terms of the resourcing that we have Very happy to help.

Drew: 25:45

Well, what I've heard is solution-focused, which is fantastic to hear, and listening, listening, listening, listening to work towards a solution and that's come through today. Any parting advice, dr Sylvia Goresh, for the listeners or principals listening in Just reach out to us.

Dr Silvia Corish: 26:07

You know, nothing is ridiculous. We can't. No, you might give us a germ of an idea you might, it might take. It might be an easy thing that we can say, yes, we know about that or we can link you up with so-and-so. But please make sure that you ask, because the more connections that we have, the more support that we can provide across the whole state. And it's you know, we go from elite sports people, you know, from competitive sport pathway to managing different sorts of very small school gala days events, you know, in country towns. Whatever, we're there to help, we're there to provide advice and support in any way that we can.

Drew: 26:51

Fantastic advice. Thank you again for your time, dr Sylvia Corish, everyone.

Dr Silvia Corish: 26:57

Thank you. Thanks, Drew Bye.

Drew: 27:00

Thanks again for listening and if you've enjoyed this four-part series with the New South Wales Department of Education School Sport Unit, please share it with your colleagues, friends and family to show the truly meaningful work of the New South Wales Department of Education School Sports Unit. It really does change lives and there is so much as we have unpacked in this four-part series of really high qualityquality professional learning. So until next time, I look forward to your company in our next podcast. You.