PUPILS at a Bradford school are being offered a wider range of sports as part of a bid to gain the School Games Mark.

Over the last few months the range of sports at St Matthew’s CE Primary has increased, and is set to be further expanded at the start of the new school year in September.

The school currently offers football, cricket, rugby with the Bradford Bulls, athletics, rounders, hockey, orienteering, dance and gymnastics.

Some pupils have already had training in Flag Football (a non-contact version of American Football). From September, a coach from Leeds Beckett University’s Leeds Academy of American Football will provide seven weeks of coaching as the sport becomes part of the curriculum. The school will also add handball, Tchoukball, a warm up activity for handball invented in Switzerland, table tennis and Tri Golf, entry level golf.

Sports Coach Ashley Jackson and PE teacher Heidi Parsons have drawn up a Sports Development Plan to increase participation in sport and PE and encourage more competition.

Pupils have also been placed in “sports houses” named after legendary figures like Jesse Owens and Muhammad Ali.

Ashley Jackson said: “Our new sports offer will help our pupils to learn new sports, increase the amount of time they spend doing sports activities, improve their maths skills, work more co-operatively as they play in teams and become more competitive.”