Published: 17 July 2007
Five hours of sport a week for every child
A £100m campaign to give every child the chance of five hours of sport every week has been recently announced by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.
He called for a 'united team effort' in the run up to 2012 to make sport a part of every child's day; ‘Building a greater sporting nation and a fitter nation. Involving schools, parents, volunteers, coaches and the sports world to offer the equivalent of an hour of sport to every child, every day of the school week’.
The plans include greater emphasis on competition within and between schools, a network of competition managers and a new National School Sports Week.
The new funding will provide:
· up to five hours of sport per week for all pupils and three hours for young people aged 16-19
· a new National School Sport Week, championed by Dame Kelly Holmes where all schools will be encouraged to run sports days and inter-school tournaments. This will build on the success of the UK School Games and its impact on motivating young people to take part in competitive sport
· a network of 225 competition managers across the country to work with primary and secondary schools to increase the amount of competitive sport they offer
· more coaches in schools and the community to deliver expert sporting advice to young people
The Government will also challenge the sporting bodies to develop modern school sport competitions leading to local, regional and national finals.
The Prime Minister said:
"We need to put school sport back where it belongs, playing a central role in the school day. I was lucky enough to have primary and secondary schools that had sport at the centre of their ethos. I want every child to have that opportunity to take part.
Watching sport is a national pastime. Talking about sport is a national obsession. But now we need to make taking part in sport a national characteristic.
Whatever their natural ability and whatever their age sport and activity can make our children healthier, raise self-confidence and self-esteem. It develops teamwork, discipline and a sense of fair play. Values that will stand young people and the country in good stead in the years to come.
To do this will take a concerted campaign, a real team effort. Government is doing its bit. Schools, parents, volunteers and the sporting world can do theirs. I call on them to join us. Together we can help every child be the best they can be."
The moves will help strengthen the competitive framework for school sport - from grassroots to elite. The ultimate aim is for every child to have access to a range of sporting competition from local and regional level, leading on to national finals.
Mr Brown announced the campaign at a recent visit to the West London Academy with culture secretary James Purnell and children schools and families secretary Ed Balls.
The school, in Ealing, has an excellent reputation for competitive sport and for its PE provision, for both its own pupils and for those from its partner schools
Mr Purnell said:
"Competitive sport is enjoyable and good for all children and young people, not just those who excel. It helps improve children's teamwork and social skills, and boosts confidence and self esteem.
Competitive sport gives every child the chance to be the very best they can be and help us find the champions of tomorrow.
Many schools are already committed to competitive sport, but often focussed on the school's top athletes. We want every child, in every school, to have the opportunity to compete.
We want to see a return to competitions within school as well as a healthy rivalry between schools. Competitive sport should be a key part of school life."
Double Olympic Champion Dame Kelly Holmes said:
"In my role as National School Sport Champion, I've seen a lot of great work going on in schools' across the country to encourage more young people to get involved in playing and taking part in competitive sport, and that's why the added investment announced by the Government today is a welcome boost.
It will enable more schools to offer more competitive sport to their pupils helping more of them to achieve their potential. I therefore welcome the launch of a national school sport week, which will further enhance these opportunities."
The Government's National School Sport Strategy, jointly delivered through the Department for Children, School and Families and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, has a PSA target to increase the percentage of 5-16 year olds who do a minimum of two hours quality school sport a week by 85% by 2008.
The percentage of children hitting the two hours for 2006 was 80%, beating the set target of 75% for the year.
The Government's long-term aim was to offer all children four hours of sport by 2010 through a combination of sport provision in the curriculum and out of school and community activities. With the additional £100 million funding announced recently this has been increased to five hours.
This funding will be spent to complete the national roll-out of competition managers who will deliver a programme of interschool competitive sport, sports coordinators to increase the sporting offer to those in further education, experienced coaches and volunteers to work inside and outside schools to provide the five hour offer.
At present, 37% of pupils take part in sporting competition between schools, and 71% within their own school.
The measures and investment announced recently aim to ensure that all children get the opportunity to take part in competitive sport, whatever their ability.
The competition leaders will work across school sport partnerships and liaise with national governing bodies, school sport associations and county sport partnerships to co-ordinate, develop and manage more sporting competitions for young people.
Why does one get the feeling that we have heard most of this before?
The concepts are reasonable, but one has to ask if there will be sufficient funding and trained staff to organise & supervise all these inter-school and other competitions.
For example even a hockey match with a relatively nearby school could involve at least one teacher from each school in an extra 4 hours of work for just 11 pupils.
It also raises questions regarding the transportation of all these pupils, especially for schools located in more rural areas.
Somehow, even if the staff were willing to take on the extra work, one doesn’t think that the extra funding will be sufficient.
In the ‘good old days’ many staff volunteered for free, but these days their ‘out of class’ duties include reams of paperwork and they are concerned (quite understandingly) about whether little John/Jane will sue if they get injured.
Sport is ‘dangerous’ and the situation is not helped by the fact that the powers of teachers to discipline unruly children is much more limited than 30 or 40 years ago when inter-school matches were common.
One fundamental problem is that ‘match reports’ have been largely replaced with ‘Risk Assessments’.
It is interesting to see however that competition between pupils is now no longer regarded as a ‘bad’ thing. Some of us can remember the time when educationalists were all for banning sports days because it was unfair that not everyone could win.
Mind you, there may still be a case for banning the parents, based on some recent examples of their behaviour!
Further information
Teachernet, National strategy
DCMS: School sport
Youth Sport Trust
Ofsted: School Sport partnerships
Related articles
NAO – Childhood Obesity
Ofsted Sports Report
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