Creating Active Schools In Essex (CAS)
Driving Change in Essex Schools
Creating Active Schools (CAS) is a national whole‑school programme that places physical activity at the centre of school policy, culture, and everyday practice. It enables schools to redesign their environments, routines, and teaching approaches to create meaningful opportunities for children to move more throughout the day.
The Creating Active Schools in Essex programme has been designed as a transformation-focused, test‑and‑learn initiative, rather than a traditional delivery model. From the outset, the intention has been to explore how whole‑school physical activity cultures can be strengthened, what conditions enable schools to embed change, and how system partners can better align to support schools effectively.
While the programme draws on the national Full CAS Model for structure and guidance, its Essex application has deliberately prioritised flexibility, responsiveness, and learning in real time.
This approach recognises the diverse needs, capacities and contexts of Essex schools, and has allowed the programme to evolve organically as insights emerge from practice.
The Journey So Far
Over the course of the first cohort’s engagement, the programme has experienced a deep period of learning, reflection and adaptation. Close collaboration with schools, senior leaders, practitioners and system partners has sharpened our understanding of the conditions that genuinely enable meaningful change. Early engagement highlighted the complex systems schools operate within, underlining the importance of strong relationships, shared outcomes and accessible, hands-on practitioner support. As delivery progressed, the critical value of place‑based insight and consistent school‑facing support became increasingly evident.
This evolving journey has shaped the programme model, strengthening the balance between school autonomy, practitioner expertise and system-wide coordination. The insights gained through this developmental phase now form a strong foundation for the next stage of the programme’s evolution.
A whole‑school approach ensures physical activity is not viewed as the responsibility of the PE department alone, but a shared cultural commitment embedded across policy, practice, environment and community engagement. This means creating opportunities for movement throughout the school day through active play, redesigned playgrounds, active travel, active lessons and staff-wide training. When physical activity is de‑siloed and woven into everyday life, schools experience broader improvements in behaviour, wellbeing, readiness to learn and whole‑school engagement.
The CAS programme is built around a whole-system approach that helps schools embed physical activity into every part of the school day, from policies and staff practice to environments and opportunities for movement. By using the CAS profiling tool, schools gain a deeper understanding of their current provision and can develop targeted, evidence-informed Action Plans to improve activity levels in a sustainable way. This structured yet flexible framework allows schools to prioritise areas most relevant to their context, whether improving classroom layouts, enhancing breaktime activity, strengthening stakeholder engagement, or expanding active travel. As a result, schools across Essex have been able to make meaningful progress at their own pace, while still contributing to a consistent, countywide shift toward more active, health-promoting school cultures.
Active Essex played a pivotal role in guiding each school through its CAS journey by delivering the initial onboarding and expectation‑setting sessions, then supporting schools as they worked through the 100‑question CAS Profiling Tool and developed personalised Action Plans. They continued to strengthen implementation by providing staff CPD, facilitating parent workshops, and encouraging whole‑school engagement.
Active Essex also connected schools with wider system partners, including the ECC Active Travel team, ensuring schools benefited from broader expertise and opportunities. Throughout the process, they helped maintain momentum through practical advice, ongoing communication, and strategic guidance, with schools consistently reporting that this sustained support was crucial in driving progress and embedding CAS into daily practice.
Hatfield Peverel Infants
Hatfield Peverel Infants used the CAS Framework to transform its lunchtime environment, redesigning the playground into themed activity zones and introducing a new playleader to support purposeful, active play. Staff and pupil feedback highlighted overwhelmingly positive reactions to the new spaces, with children enthusiastically engaging in new games, equipment, and creative activities. As a result, lunchtime behavioural incidents fell from 40 to 25, a 37.5% reduction, after the changes were introduced. Early Years and KS1 activity levels also rose significantly, with 92% of EYFS pupils and 85% of KS1 pupils meeting Government activity targets by January 2026
The CAS programme has begun to create meaningful ripple effects across participating schools, with many reporting improvements beyond physical activity alone. Schools have linked increased movement to better concentration, motivation, and behaviour in the classroom, while enhanced parent engagement—through workshops and Active Travel initiatives—has strengthened connections between school and home.
Interest in CAS continues to grow, demonstrated by the launch of a second cohort of eleven schools, and staff increasingly view physical activity as an integral part of learning rather than an add‑on. Collectively, these shifts show that CAS is influencing wider school culture and extending its impact into the broader community.
Alderton Junior School
Alderton Junior School used the CAS Framework to embed activity more deeply across curriculum, environment, and family engagement. After completing its CAS profiling, the school introduced a series of targeted actions, including improving corridors and classrooms to support movement based learning and launching an Active Travel plan to encourage walking and cycling. Staff were supported to integrate physical activity into non PE lessons, and parents were engaged through workshops highlighting local activity opportunities and the benefits of regular movement. These efforts led to notable increases in pupil activity levels, with girls’ activity rising by 21% and SEND pupils increasing by 6% between March 2025 and January 2026.
Key Learnings
It's important to take time to reflect and understand the learnings from work undertaken, to focus on ways to improve in the future.
Early Wins
Quick environmental changes boosted motivation and created visible progress across schools.
Staff Engagement
Whole‑school engagement relied on informed staff to support consistent implementation.
Data Consistency
Inconsistent evaluation methods limited comparisons and slowed impact understanding.
Flexible Delivery
Schools progressed differently, benefiting from CAS’s adaptable structure and timelines.
Resource Limitations
Some schools required “lite” versions due to reduced capacity or priorities.
Looking ahead, the CAS programme will continue to evolve through more consistent and simple impact‑measurement tools across participating schools, enabling clearer tracking of behaviour, engagement, and wellbeing outcomes. Schools will benefit from expanded staff training to further embed physical activity within curriculum lessons, alongside continued improvements to both indoor and outdoor environments that encourage movement throughout the school day.
Strengthening relationships with parents and community partners will also remain a priority, ensuring active habits extend beyond school grounds. Finally, developing a wider collection of case studies will help showcase best practice, share learning across Essex, and reinforce the long‑term value of the programme.
Data and insight from our first cohort has been compelling and positive, and will help us develop further iterations of this work. Due to the evolving and very bespoke nature of this programme it is difficult to tie together a complete comprehensive evaluation however.Dawn Emberson, Active Essex Relationship Manager
