We Are Forging Futures: The Story So Far
We Are Forging Futures was featured in the most recent edition of The Sword, British Fencing’s member magazine.
Since its launch in 2022, We Are Forging Futures has gone from strength to strength. With 49 current partners and exceptional feedback from participants and staff alike, British Fencing (BF)’s educational brand has had a brilliant impact on schools across the UK and beyond.
We Are Forging Futures was born from the previous ‘British Fencing Primary School Resource Pack (PSRP)’, a researched and field-tested personal development programme designed to bring fencing-based activities to schools. It then became its own brand, stepping away from the colours associated with the governance-based National Governing Body of BF. Instead, its pastel colours and playful swoosh patterns were designed to appeal to its younger, primary and secondary school audience.
The brand retains the same premise of the old PSRP, equipping teachers with the knowledge, support and training to deliver 36 Ofsted-aligned lesson plans. Partners attend an in-depth one-day training process that provides underpinning insight and knowledge into how to use games and swordplay fun to introduce fencing to children. We Are Forging Futures emphasises personal development, using fencing as a means of building children’s resilience and self-efficacy.
We Are Forging Futures is designed to appeal to all children, whether or not they consider themselves as ‘sporty’.
Finding a sport that suits us can often be difficult, especially for young people going through school. Feeling awkward and embarrassed, being forced to go outside in freezing weather, and always being picked last for a team are all common experiences for those who don’t enjoy typical sports. Yet physical activity is vital to keeping us healthy, both physically and mentally.
That’s where fencing comes in. Because not many young people will have tried it before, everyone starts on the same page. It’s also a creative sport, appealing to those interested in video games, books, films, anime and other alternative media. You pick up a sword, put your mask on, and imagine yourself as a completely different character.
Another appeal of fencing is its ability to engage with neurodiverse participants. Over the years, we have received feedback about the positive impact of fencing on autistic children, helping them to reduce social isolation. We Are Forging Futures therefore aims to reach special schools as part of its mission to get young people active. Recently, Trinity Fields School & Resource Centre in Caerphilly became the first special school in Wales to join our partner network.
We Are Forging Futures has been featured in various initiatives and campaigns, aiming to increase the exposure of fencing to as many schools and activity centres as possible.
In March 2023, We Are Forging Futures took part as an exhibitor at the Youth Sport Trust (YST) Conference in Telford. The event was centred around the ‘power of PE, sport and play to improve mental health’, in response to NHS findings that the number of children in England needing treatment for serious mental health problems has risen by 39% in a year.
We returned to the event in the following year, collaborating with Inspiring Learning. This year’s event focused on the attainment gap, referring to the differences in physical activity levels depending on economic disadvantage, ethnicity, disability or gender.
Activity networks were encouraged to think about how ‘play can emerge as powerful catalysts for change, creating an event at the forefront of educational transformation’.
In the case of We Are Forging Futures, 95% of schools partnered with us are state funded by the Department for Education. Only 5% are private independent schools, evidencing our focus on tackling inequalities and challenging the stigma of fencing being elitist and for the upper class.
What’s more, by the end of 2024, 36% of the school pupils partnered with us were in the most Deprived Places, and 33% in the poor Health and Disability domain. By partnering with schools in these areas, we can encourage as many school pupils to get active, who otherwise wouldn’t have had access to fencing.
In September 2023, BF, Inspiring Learning and the International Physical Literacy Association (IPLA) convened in Doncaster for an initial meeting to discuss an exciting joint project.
Noting the years of qualitative evidence and observations, it was agreed that fencing, particularly when delivered as part of a formal learning programme, has a unique ability to introduce key personal development skills rooted in resilience. This initiated a process of creating a research project proposal through the expertise of Professor John Allan, respected academic in the field of resilience. The aim of the project is to begin to formally quantify fencing’s impact as a tool to introduce and develop resilience and physical literacy.
Defined by the IPLA, physical literacy is ‘the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge, and understanding to value and take responsibility for engagement in physical activities for life’.
To celebrate the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, We Are Forging Futures teamed up with Team GB and ParalympicsGB for their ‘Path To Paris’ campaign in May 2024. From the birthplace of the Olympic Games in Athens, children took part in a virtual journey in a team bus, completing fun activities on the way. Each activity enabled students to power their virtual bus with the goal of reaching Paris.
The aim of the Path to Paris initiative resonated strongly with We Are Forging Futures, motivating children to take part in physical activity while developing confidence and resilience.
We Are Forging Futures was invited to the YST School Sport & Activity Sector Partnership Summit, held at the King Power Stadium in October 2024. The event brought together representatives from different organisations to share and learn from each other at the beginning of the academic year.
Officials from Government Departments and Youth Board representatives were also invited to share their insights. The event included sector updates from Youth Sport Trust, Sport England and the Department for Education. We heard from Matthew Hopkinson, Deputy Director of the Life Skills Division at the Department of Education; and Catherine McKinnell MP, Minister for School Standard.
Harry Brown, BF National Partnerships & Engagement Manager and member of the Physical Literacy action group, spoke about the contribution of We Are Forging Futures. By allowing young people to harness the creativity of swordplay, we can help them to develop a positive relationship with movement. Bolstered by the personal development themes instilled in our programmes, We Are Forging Futures helps them to begin a fulfilling journey of confidence and self-empowerment.
Furthering the themes discussed during the summit, We Are Forging Futures was then featured in YST’s Physical Literacy toolkit, helping organisations and individuals to embed the concept into workforce and staff training.
The toolkit contains three chapters: ‘Ignite – Why it matters?, connecting networks with their own relationship with physical activity’; ‘United – What can we do differently, together?’, developing a consistency of understanding about physical literacy; and ‘Excite – How to build momentum, create ripples’, empowering examples of positive impact.
Physical literacy is central to the work that we do at We Are Forging Futures, using fencing to appeal to everyone – regardless of whether they enjoy physical activity – and encouraging them to get active.
As part of BF’s partnership with PGL, the leading provider of introductory fencing experiences in the UK, we delivered a national two-day refresher event for their instructors.
The partnership began in 2016 and has grown each year. Over 3,000 PGL fencing instructors have been trained since 2018, and almost 100,000 people were introduced to fencing in 2024 alone. The training was delivered by BF’s Fencing Development Team, introduced in October last year in order to support the growth of fencing across the country. This included both the practical elements of coaching and an orientation of We Are Forging Futures.
We also discussed accessibility and gave a demonstration of our newly-launched SwordSeat™, a wooden seated fencing frame that can either be bought or assembled. The SwordSeat is designed to significantly reduce the cost of wheelchair fencing in order to make it accessible to a wider range of people.
Seated fencing already features as part of our training for new We Are Forging Futures partners, and we hope to bring in the SwordSeat as to improve the experience for students who cannot take part in standing fencing.
With Crown Hills Community College recently renewing their partnership with BF, the future of our work in education is bright. Having achieved substantial success in primary and secondary schools, we are constantly expanding our horizons.
Currently, over 25,000 pupils are engaged in fencing across our partner schools, and this participation is only increasing.
As well as building on our existing partner network, the goal of We Are Forging Futures is to connect with the leisure market, allowing more young people to get involved in the world of fencing.
