This Commercial report forms part of a series of reports which accompany the 2024-25 BF Annual Report.
Throughout 2024–25, commercial focus remained on the education sector and commercial delivery partners, with a goal of working with 30 new partners delivering the We Are Forging Futures educationally aligned personal development brand. To support this planned growth, development of communications and marketing to position, the core purpose of the brand within educational outcomes in comparison to solely a Physical Education, School Sport and/or Physical Activity offering is that it 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. Not many young people will have tried it before therefore 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.
We Are Forging Futures has been featured in various initiatives and campaigns working with such stakeholders as the Youth Sport Trust, as well as building on the Games in Paris partnering with Team GB and ParalympicsGB, aiming to increase the exposure of fencing to as many schools and activity centres as possible.
Our underlying strategic objectives were to sustain and grow business as reported below.
At the end of the financial year March 2025, formal agreements were in place with 61 organisations, equating to 49 schools, 10 activity providers and 2 official designated partners. This showed an increase of 17 from the previous year. All of these agreements are minimum two-years, supporting programme sustainability and developing long term partnerships.
We Are Forging Futures delivery in the education sector has the ability to strategically diversify fencing’s participant base by overcoming schools perceived financial and non-financial barriers to introducing fencing.
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, reaching a larger and more diverse audience.
From the 49 schools now successfully delivering this educationally aligned Resilience and Self-efficacy programme, 6 of these are SEN special schools delivering to children and young people meeting their specific needs to help develop vital life skills.
What’s more, 35% of the school pupils partnered with us were in the most Deprived Places, and 31% in the poor Health and Disability domain according to the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). By partnering with schools in these areas, we can encourage as many school pupils as possible to get active, who otherwise wouldn’t have had access to fencing evidencing the positive impact British Fencing are having across a cross-section of communities.
*Full list of partners can be found at the We Are Forging Futures Partners page.
Through the programme, BF has trained 276 new teachers via the Core Coach course, who in turn are supporting delivery to over 25,000 children every year, contributing to BF’s wider vision of building ‘A strong, successful and sustainable fencing community’.
Five organisations remain in the Licensed Partner Programme, delivering in total 50 Core Coach courses, training 595 new instructors, an increase YOY of 167 newly trained instructors in an activity provider setting, who will continue to bring fencing experiences to new audiences.
Carnival UK, PGL Travel Ltd and Center Parcs, continue to work with BF. As part of BF’s partnership with PGL as our official ‘Have a Go’ partner, the leading provider of introductory fencing experiences in the UK, we delivered a national two-day refresher event for their instructors.
The partnership with PGL 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.
Kingswood Inspiring Learning, our Official Resilience Partner (2-year agreement initially) aligning with their interest in the Resilience and Self-efficacy programme of We Are Forging Futures, unfortunately fell into administration in January 2024 and no longer operate as a partner.
Since 2019, Crown Hills Community College has been in partnership with BF as an ‘Official Training Partner’, allowing students to experience a sport not normally offered in state school education. Now, Crown Hills and BF are renewing their partnership, introducing more young people to fencing across the local community.
Additional to these existing and renewals, two new organisations have joined the License Partner Programme journey in Scout Adventures and NAYC & Action Centres UK to support the growth of the wider fencing community by providing venues to deliver coach education, which reduced the cost of educating coaches.
Following the successful strengthening of the We Are Forging Futures branding and positioning in the previous year, focus continued in promoting awareness of this brand and its associated services. The development and implementation of a weekly communication process has been put in place where schools across England are contacted, broken down by local authority. In 2024 – 25, 6,900 schools (out of 24,000) were contacted via email, showcasing this personal development opportunity.
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 (YST), 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 Head of Partnerships and member of the YST Physical Literacy action group, spoke about the contribution of We Are Forging Futures. He explained that by allowing young people to harness the creativity of swordplay, we can help them to develop a positive relationship with movement and, 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.
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.
The main commercial objective is to generate revenue that supports the organisation and reduces its reliance on external funding. This contribution to the overall sustainability of the organisation enables us to better support the sport and our members.
2024-25 was a challenging year commercially with an ever-changing team due to the previous commercial director departing BF, and the sudden sad loss of our finance director David Mosely which took a large toll across the whole of BF and it’s teams. Due to these challenges revenue decreased from £195k, to £168k showing a 14% decrease in revenue year-on-year. Although BFs commercial partner base increased by 17 year-on-year, the loss of Kingswood as our official ‘Resilience’ partner, due to falling into administration, has meant a shortfall in income.
In June 2024, due to the passing of David Moseley, BFs finance director, James Craig the previous commercial director returned to BF for 6 months in a support role to help with keeping the department on track with the wider NGBs vision to grow and sustain the partnership base.
Coach education has continued to stay consistent with delivered courses and income to upskill the fencing community workforce:
Coach Education Metrics
• 13 ITCF courses (92 coaches trained)
• 5 Level 2 course (51 coaches trained)
• 1 Level 3 (9 coaches trained)
• 17 two day Core Coach courses, 4 one day Core Coach courses (206 coaches trained)
• Safeguard Core, Welfare Officer, Events Officer (410 candidates trained)
• Explore Fencing CPD eLearning (167 individual sales, including bulk registrations, an increase of 94 year on year)
BF Achievement Awards has grown steadily over the past year exceeding budget by £2k achieving £7,274 of revenue (past year £7,030), enabling schools, organisations, clubs to recognise and reward fencers in turn sustaining participation on their fencing journey.
• GoFence and MiniSwords = 60 packs (previous year 17 packs)
• Weapon Specific – 375 packs (previous year 413 packs)
Our focus areas for 2025-26 include:
Click here for the full 2024-25 Annual Report.
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