ISF Education
ISF's education promotes the use of sports as a tool for holistic development — physical, intellectual, moral, and social — emphasizing values like fair play, friendship, solidarity, and equality. It fosters cultural exchange and inclusivity, aiming to build better global citizens through sports while promoting Olympic values and safeguarding children. The initiative bridges school sports and educational environments to enhance youth skills and address issues like discrimination and violence.
ISF aims to promote school sport in all its forms as an educational tool for the physical, intellectual, moral, social and cultural development of students, to convey the Olympic spirit and the values of peace, friendship, solidarity and fair play, without discrimination of race, gender, sexual orientation, language, religion or philosophical beliefs, politics or other opinions, of origin, physical aspect, wealth, language, birth or any other situation.
ISF also aims to bridge the gap and facilitate contacts between school sports groups, to cooperate with and assist institutions, federations, associations, national or international groups with similar objectives. To that end, ISF will, among other things, promote, organize, supervise, coordinate meetings, conferences, events, and activities related to school sport and/or democracy values. It will also organize, promote, monitor and supervise competitions and international sports events for students.
At the crossroad between the formal educational framework and the field of sport, ISF is promoting and organising educational events to set up the proper environment to ensure the skills development of young people.
ISF Academy
The ISF Academy, launched in February 2023, serves as ISF’s global Education & Innovation center. It focuses on advancing school sports worldwide by offering high-quality resources, training programs, and events aimed at improving health, promoting international mobility, and enhancing skills development in school sports.
Integrity & Safeguarding in Sport
Safeguarding children and young people participating in sport has become an increasingly prominent concern in policy-making and research communities around the world. ISF, the governing body for school sport, with youth at the core of its activities, has the obligation to provide a safe environment (free from all forms of violence and abuse) for all children participating in its events, and even further, to spread a non-violent culture towards its member federations and schools around the world.
The International School Sport Federation has embraced the fight against all forms of non-accidental violence in accordance with the IOC recommendation on Safeguarding.
The specificity of ISF is to use sport as an educational tool to create an environment where we can spread values and principles to make youth better citizens at all levels. During ISF events the participants will try out our integrity actions through an especially designed workshop, using the innovative method of storytelling.
We believe that children have the inner resources, if educated, to fully understand, identify, and react when confronted by negative behaviour such as racism, gender inequity, or violence and abuse. The challenge for us is to find the right way to express difficult ideas and present complicated topics to youth in order for them to not only understand but also recognise this issue, and appropriately react if facing it:
- Youth involved in sport need to have a clear understanding of, and be able to identify the issues surrounding safeguarding in sport. Whether they are regularly training for competition or just practising sport occasionally, for fun.
- Youth need to be able to identify and name abusive behaviours and need to know how important it is to be brave enough to tell someone if something is wrong.
- Youth that are affected need to understand that it's not their fault. That they can tell someone. That there is help out there.
ISF School Sport Forum
The ISF School Sport Forum offers the opportunity to increase knowledge and understanding about the international school sport movement and to know more about subjects related to education, culture and sport through a series of plenary and parallel sessions. It is the platform for exchange between representatives of school sport organisations and public authorities, intergovernmental organizations, sport federations and partner to highlight and strengthen the role of school sport and the ISF as a vehicle for public policies aimed at young students.
This event is always organised in cooperation with the highest local academic authorities ensuring the academic level and scientific credibility. The LOC selects a higher academic institution to be the educational partner of the Conference.
Fun & Skills Zone
The Fun and Skills zone is designed to be the location that gathers various different ISF partners in order to present their activities, aims and goals as well as provide interactive games. It will also be the place where the traditional ‘Nations Night’ will take place during which the participating delegations present their cultures with traditional music and attire on the main stage. This zone will be focus on three main goals.
First, to present the leading values of the ISF, starting with Fair Play, Clean Sport, Sport and Olympic Values and the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. Secondly, thanks to the attendance of the International Sport Federations partners, the participants have the opportunity to discover new practices, sports and the value-based programmes being developed by these federations, and lastly, with the help of the organisers they will discover local sport and traditional culture and the backgrounds of the other participants thanks to the initiative of the Nations night.