National School Sport Week 2026 · 22–28 June

NSSW.
The team-skills version.

A free, ready-to-run primary classroom kit for National School Sport Week 2026. Five daily themes built around Work as a Team’s six activities — Trust, Roles, Communication, Strategy, Conflict, Collaboration — with an F1 pit-crew real-story anchor, KS1 and KS2 activities, a parent letter and a team-skills resources directory. Indoor or outdoor, no PE kit required.

Open the 5-Day Plan → Skip to F1 Pit-Crew Story
National School Sport Week 2026
Monday 22 June — Sunday 28 June
Spark2 angle
Work as a Team — the skill behind the sport
EYFS – Y6Whole-school ready
5 daysOne team skill per day
Indoor or outdoorNo PE kit required
FreeNo sign-up needed
Spark2 Work as a Team workshop in action
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The 5-Day Work as a Team Plan

One skill per day. A small, concrete activity that fits in any classroom or playground. Five days that change how a class works together.

Mon · Day 1

Trust Builders

Activity 1 of 6

Trust is the foundation. Without it, no team works. Children learn to rely on each other through low-stakes partner challenges.

Try this: The Trust Walk — eyes closed, no blindfolds. In pairs, one child closes their eyes, the other guides them around an obstacle in the hall using only voice. Swap. Discuss.
Tue · Day 2

Role Discovery

Activity 2 of 6

Every team needs different roles. The leader. The note-taker. The encourager. The quiet thinker. Every role matters.

Try this: The Role Cards. Hand out 6 mystery cards (Leader, Listener, Time-keeper, Idea-maker, Encourager, Question-asker). Run a 5-min team task. Reflect: what did your role add?
Wed · Day 3

Communication Challenge

Activity 3 of 6

Talking AND listening. The half teams forget. Today: one without the other, then both. The difference is huge.

Try this: Back-to-back drawing. One child describes a simple shape. The other draws it without seeing. Compare to original. Laugh, then try again with questions allowed.
Thu · Day 4

Team Strategy

Activity 4 of 6

Planning together. Allocating effort. Knowing when to lead and when to follow. Strategy beats individual brilliance.

Try this: The Marshmallow Challenge. Tables of 4 build the tallest free-standing tower from 20 spaghetti, 1m tape, and 1 marshmallow. 18 minutes. Reflect on who did what.
Fri · Day 5

Collaboration Mission + Pledge

Activities 5 + 6 + Pledge

Bring it all together: a real team mission. Then each child commits to one team-skill they’ll keep working on for the rest of term.

Try this: Team Pledge cards. “On my team, I’ll always _____.” Read aloud. Display on the wall. Photo for the parent newsletter.
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Real Story — The F1 Pit Crew

The story to read aloud during Day 2 (Role Discovery) or as the assembly opener. Every primary kid has seen a pit-stop on TV. Most have never thought about how it works.

The 2-Second Team

An F1 driver wins the race. But it’s 22 people in matching uniforms who change the tyres in less than 2 seconds.

Watch any Formula 1 race and you’ll see a single driver, alone in their helmet, going round and round at 200mph. That’s the bit on TV. But the real magic happens when they pull into the pit-lane.

Around 22 mechanics jump out. Each one has a single, tiny job. One holds the front jack. Two hold a wheel-gun. Two more hold the new tyres. Two hold the old. Three watch for the release signal. One job. Each. And they do it perfectly, 1.80 seconds to change all four tyres — that’s the world record.

“The driver gets the medal. But there is no medal without the team. Twenty-two people, one job each, no superstars — that’s the whole story.”

This is what teamwork actually looks like. Not everyone doing everything — everyone doing the one right thing at the one right time. Knowing your role. Trusting the others to do theirs. No-one being more important than the team.

~22
people in a single F1 pit crew
1.80s
world record for a 4-tyre change
1 job
each — nobody does two
F1 pit-crew choreography · team sizes vary slightly by team and era · the world record is held by McLaren (1.80s, Qatar GP 2023, Lando Norris), just ahead of Red Bull (1.82s, Brazilian GP 2019, Max Verstappen)
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Classroom Activities

Two ready-to-go activities per phase. 25–45 minutes each. Indoor or outdoor. No PE kit required.

KS1 · EYFS–Y2

The Pit-Crew Relay

Time: 30 minutes · Day: Best on Tue (Role Discovery)

Inspired by the F1 anchor story. Teams of 4 each get a single role in a relay. The team that finishes is the team where everyone did THEIR job — not the fastest individuals.

  1. Set up 4 stations. Each child in a team gets one job: water-carrier, cone-mover, hoop-holder, finish-line tagger.
  2. The water-carrier walks (no spilling!) to station 2. The cone-mover stands a cone. The hoop-holder holds the hoop for the next teammate. The finish-line tagger waits at the end.
  3. Teams complete the relay. Each child does ONLY their job. No swapping.
  4. Reflect: what happened when one role was missing? Can a team work with only the loud kids? (No.)
Materials: 4 cones per team, 4 small water cups (or beanbags indoors — spilled water on a hall floor is a slip hazard), 1 hoop per team, a clear start and finish line.
KS1 · EYFS–Y2

Trust Walk Partners

Time: 25 minutes · Day: Best on Mon (Trust Builders)

The classic trust-builder, KS1-style. Children pair up. One closes their eyes; the other guides them safely around an obstacle course using only their voice.

  1. In pairs (carefully chosen by the teacher!), child A closes their eyes. Child B is the guide.
  2. Set up a simple obstacle course: cones, hoops, a chair to walk around. Soft surfaces only.
  3. Child B uses ONLY voice (no touching) to guide child A through. “Two steps forward… left… stop.”
  4. Swap. Repeat. Discuss: what did you have to trust your partner to do?
Materials: Cones / hoops / chairs for an obstacle course. NO blindfolds (closed eyes only, with safety supervision).
KS2 · Y3–Y6

The Marshmallow Challenge

Time: 45 minutes · Day: Best on Thu (Team Strategy)

The flagship KS2 activity. Tables of 4 build the tallest free-standing tower they can from 20 spaghetti, 1 metre of tape, and 1 marshmallow on top. Real strategy, real problem-solving, plenty of arguing.

  1. Each table gets: 20 strands of dry spaghetti, 1 metre of masking tape, 1 marshmallow, 1 metre of string.
  2. Goal: build the tallest free-standing structure with the marshmallow on top. 18 minutes total.
  3. NO planning time off-camera — they have to plan AND build inside the 18 minutes.
  4. Stop. Measure. The trick: most teams put the marshmallow on at the end and the towers collapse. Successful teams test with the marshmallow on EARLY.
  5. Reflect: who took the lead? Who quietly helped? Who’s a marshmallow-tester next time?
Materials per team: 20 strands dry spaghetti, 1m masking tape, 1m string, 1 marshmallow, ruler. Safety: check allergies — marshmallows contain gelatine; they’re for building, not eating (choking hazard). No snapping or throwing spaghetti.
KS2 · Y5–Y6

Conflict Resolution Scenarios

Time: 35 minutes · Day: Best on Fri (or any time disagreements brew)

Y5/6 are old enough for proper conflict-resolution work. Use real Y6 dilemmas (not made up) and rehearse the conversations they’ll need at secondary.

  1. Hand out 4 scenario cards: friendship-group split / unfair sports-team pick / classmate not pulling weight on a project / accidental insult.
  2. Each table picks one. They have 5 minutes to plan TWO conversations: the unhelpful one (blame, shouting, going silent) and the helpful one (listening, calm tone, “I felt…” statements).
  3. Each table acts out BOTH versions for the class.
  4. Reflection: what made the helpful version helpful? Build a class anchor chart titled “Things that help when there’s a problem on our team.”
Materials: Pre-printed scenario cards, anchor-chart paper, marker pens.
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Parent Communication Template

A short letter you can send home Monday morning, or paste into the school newsletter. Tells parents what we’re doing for NSSW and how to extend it.

Letter / Newsletter Insert

NSSW & Work as a Team at [School Name]

Dear Parents and Carers,

This week (22–28 June) is National School Sport Week. We’re using it as a chance to focus on the skill that sits underneath every sport — working as a team. Five days, six skills: Trust, Roles, Communication, Strategy, Conflict Resolution, Collaboration.

Each day children explore one skill through hands-on activities — the famous Marshmallow Challenge, an eyes-closed trust-walk (no blindfolds), the F1 pit-crew story, and a class “Team Pledge” that goes up on the wall on Friday.

Keep team-skills going at home:

Family is a team too. Three small things you can try this week: (1) at dinner, name one role each person played that day — the listener, the helper, the joker; (2) when there’s a disagreement, ask “what’s the helpful version of this conversation?”; (3) watch a sports highlight together and talk about who else, off-camera, made it possible — coaches, physios, parents driving to training.

Useful resources for parents include the Youth Sport Trust, Premier League Primary Stars, and Activity Alliance (inclusive sport for every child).

With best wishes,
[Headteacher / PE Lead]

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Team Skills & Sports Resources

Trusted UK resources for primary schools and parents. Use alongside this kit.

Youth Sport Trust

The official NSSW hub

The Youth Sport Trust runs National School Sport Week. Free resource packs, theme suggestions, and the schools-can-pledge tracker. The campaign hub itself.

youthsporttrust.org →

Premier League Primary Stars

Free schools content — team values

Curriculum-linked, free, primary-targeted lessons featuring real footballers and coaches. Brilliant for KS2 reflection on team roles, captaincy, and how clubs actually work.

plprimarystars.com →

Activity Alliance

Inclusive sport for every child

The UK leader on disability sport in schools. Free resources for adapted PE, paralympic teamwork stories, and inclusive sports day planning.

activityalliance.org.uk →

Sport England

Active schools framework

The 60-active-minutes-a-day standard, daily-mile resources, and the official primary PE planning framework. Brilliant for whole-year SLT planning.

sportengland.org →

Place2Be

Wellbeing-led team support

If team conflicts are getting genuinely difficult in your class, Place2Be’s in-school mental health partnership and resources are excellent. Aligns with the conflict-resolution side of teamwork.

place2be.org.uk →

BBC Bitesize PSHE

KS2 friendship + working together

Free, primary-friendly explainers on falling out, making up, and being part of a team. Quick parent share, easy class-discussion starter.

bbc.co.uk/bitesize →

Want more than a one-week kit?

Make Work as a Team your NSSW

Our “Work as a Team” workshop is a whole-school day. A specialist facilitator spends the day with you. Every class — EYFS through Year 6 — gets their own age-appropriate session covering all six activities: Trust, Roles, Communication, Strategy, Conflict Resolution, Collaboration.

1,800+Schools delivered
EYFS–Y6Whole-school
No PE kitIndoor or outdoor
Book a Work as a Team day →