April 07 Monthly Blog

Advise

What we do and how we do it
This new document sets out Sport England’s role (what it does, how it does things and how it measures the difference it makes) and its links and interaction with the Youth Sport Trust and UK Sport. More

Further information on Sport England's future way of working was recently annouced by Derek Mapp, Sport England Chairman (see Sport England to seek £50m in private sector funding below).

Active People Bulletin
The first edition of the Active People bulletin is now available, aiming to raise awareness of the Active People survey and present headline data relating to activity and inactivity across the East of England. It shows regional and local participation data by gender, age and other socio demographic factors. More

Planning Across Boundaries
In 1999 Sport England published ‘Planning across Boundaries’, providing guidance to local authorities on the production of sport and recreation strategies.

This guidance has now been completely revised and re-launched as an electronic toolkit, taking into account significant policy changes since 1999. More


Invest

Sport England to seek £50m in private sector funding
Derek Mapp has announced his intention to enter into sponsorship agreements with the UK’s leading companies to raise an additional £50 million for community sport. More

Setback to community sport legacy
Derek Mapp has described the Government's decision to divert a further £55.9 million of Sport England’s share of Lottery income between 2009 and 2012 to fund the 2012 Olympic/Paralympic Games as a cut too far that seriously endangers the creation of a sporting legacy from the 2012 Games. More

NGB funding criteria to be reviewed
Sport England is reviewing the way it funds sport’s national governing bodies (NGBs) to make sure its investments are focused on driving up participation. More

Funding Ideas in Beds and Luton
team BEDS&LUTON has now been operational for a year and in this time has successfully secured funding to help increase participation in sport and physical activity. team BEDS&LUTON are inviting clubs, organisations and individuals involved in sport and physical activity in Beds or Luton, to share ideas on how this funding can be used to encourage more people to play sport and be physically active.The event is to be held at Barton Rovers Football Club (Sharpenhoe Road, Barton Le Clay) on Thursday 26th April 15.00 – 17.00 or 18.00 – 20.00. Please R.S.V.P. to lisa@teambedsandluton.co.uk by Monday 16th April.


Promote

Count Me In
With just over 9000 people registered with the English Federation of Disability Sport's Count Me In campaign, the challenge is to hit the 10000 target by the end of March. Signing up means showing your support to raise the profile of disability sport, create and extend access to sport and physical activity for disabled children, young people and adults and encourage all organisations involved in the provision of sport to demonstrate a commitment to giving disabled people the same opportunities as non-disabled people. Sign up now at http://www.efds.co.uk/

On Your Marks
The OCS Young Sports Person Awards are now open. These Awards give out over £35,000 to up and coming young sports people. The Awards are now in their tenth year and have supported the likes of Beth Tweddle, James Willstrop, Kate Haywood, Louis Smith and Paul Drinkhall in the past.
The deadline for applications is 1st June, following which interviews will be made in September. The Award ceremony will be held in the OCS Stand at the Brit Oval on Thursday 22nd November with a whole host of celebrity guests. For more information visit the website at www.ocsyoungsportsperson.co.uk or call 0870 442 0990

East Coast Kiting

Marten Payne, East Coast Kiting

East Coast Kiting is a community sports initiative in Great Yarmouth. This project came about via Active England, a three year lottery-funded project. The primary objective of the project has been “to increase the number of local residents participating in physical activity and strategically build the capacity of Great Yarmouth’s sporting framework”.

Utilising statistical information available through Sport England, the national statistics database and the Great Yarmouth Sports Partnership, we have been able to address local priorities and issues of equity within the community. Within the East of England 36%* of the general population are deemed active. The term “active” is defined as five sessions of physical activity per week, 30 minutes for adults and 60 minutes for youths. Within Great Yarmouth, only 14 % of the population fall in to this “active” demographic. It is widely accepted that good health and physical activity go hand in hand, it is therefore no surprise that Great Yarmouth is nationally ranked among the top ten locations for obesity, heart disease, and diabetes, all attributed to a direct effect of a sedentary life style. It is now being argued that the 18 to 35 year old demographic within the Yarmouth borough are the first for whom it is now a statistical probability and not a possibility for their parents to out live them.


Why Choose Kite Sports?
Within Great Yarmouth there is an existing network of sporting clubs and societys, however the majority are associated with traditional sports such as football, rugby, hockey and athletics, all of which are part of the national curriculum. Existing sports development in the region is also heavily focused around these traditional activities. Globally sport has become very segmented with over 250 recognised individual registered sports. Out of all traditional school based sports only football remains in the top five fastest growing globally. It is proven that over 68% of all school leavers become inactive, one reason being their experiences are limited to that of curriculum-based traditional sports.

Minister for Sport Richard Caborn at the project during 2005

Following national behavioural trends, Great Yarmouth has growing issues surrounding a decline in activity levels and a rise in anti-social behaviour. Many young people choose to rebel and take an “anti-establishment” stance in line with modern culture. They are unresponsive to any sport seen as "traditional" with defined boundaries. Skate boarding has proven a popular alternative to traditional sport as it is perceived as different, unstructured and suggests a lifestyle which young people can easily associate with and become attached.

East Coast Kiting was able to offer itself as an easy solution to engaging non-active young people and in doing so help the local School Sports Partnership (SSP) and Community Sports Network (CSN) in achieve their primary objectives:

• Getting more local people active.
• Providing a structured extended schools programme and moving each student closer to the required two hours per week of activity.
  

Project Partners

County Sports Partnerships and Community Sports Networks
All County Sports Partnerships (CSPs) will actively contribute to increasing participation and widening access to sport and physical activity and the achievement of sporting success. CSPs will be pivotal in delivering the 1% per year participation target set by government particularly with a focus on:

• Developing more community sports opportunities for young people by supporting the delivery of the PESSCL strategy


• Helping develop more opportunities for hard to reach groups and those not already engaged in community sport.

Under each CSP will be a series of Community Sports Networks. These networks are currently coming on line across the country as part of a new restructuring of national sports framework a single “structure for sport”. CSNs are responsible for local strategy and delivery of sports on the ground. This could include:

• Local council services and sports development
• Local school sports partnership
• Local Primary Care Trust / NHS
• Community safety teams and local constabulary
• Community empowerment networks
• Children’s services
  

The list of partners can be vast, but is restricted to community or statutory organisations that have similar objectives, or would be involved in the delivery or organisation of activities in their communities.

School Sports Partnerships
At the head of each School Sports Partnership is normally the Specialist Sports College. These flagship schools are at the hub of the Government’s strategy to enhance young people’s opportunities to participate in a wide range of sports as well as raising the standards of teaching and learning of PE and school sport.

Specialist sports colleges position PE and sport at the centre of the curriculum, using it as a vehicle to develop and improve learning opportunities for all. This also includes the delivery of extended school sports clubs that are targeting an increase in out of school participation linking to local club membership.

By 2006 the government hopes to have 400 specialist sport colleges, 411 SSP’s (School Sports Partnerships), 2464 SSCOs (School Sport Coordinators) and 14,397 PLTs. (Primary Link Teachers)


East Coast Kiting Performance
Working closely with the support of the community sports network and using the local School Sports Partnership as a vessel to gain access to schools in the cluster, we were able to roll out a structured programme of kite sports. At first, this was centred on problem schools with low participation figures, but as the appeal and success of our pilot after school clubs increased we were able to move into other schools in the partnership.

During the first and second year of delivery we were able to take advantage of our regular school users and start to deliver half-term and holiday-based activities, all focused on kite sports. Summer 2006 saw over 2000 project visits during the six week holidays.

Due to limited project staffing recourses we were unable to massively increase the number of sessions delivered between year 1 and year 2. The exception being our summer holiday sessions that saw a 50% growth from 1 session per day in year 1 to 2 sessions in year 2.

The Project Age Split shows that we appealed to all school ages however, the 6 to 8 year group were not able to progress as quickly as others due to safety issues and attendance numbers dropped after a six week teaching block.

This chart shows that prior to joining East Coast Kiting 71% of all our users did not participate in more that 1 session of activity per week outside of curriculum PE.
This proves that we were successful in recruiting project members from the non-active demographic.

This chart shows that there is a steady increase in the amount of physical activity undertaken after people become project members.

Crime Reduction
No single organisation can hope to reduce the incidence of crime and tackle underlying causes of criminal and anti-social behaviour. East Coast Kiting has worked closely with community wardens and community safety teams taking a number of low to medium priority referrals on to our projects. In the areas where these referrals originate there has been a staggering 12% to 17% reduction in criminal damage, anti-social behaviour and drugs and alcohol offences committed by young people during their project engagement time.

By scheduling further clubs at key offending times and utilising crime reduction and community safety funding, we have been able to contribute to the safety of Great Yarmouth. These strategies are dependent on every organisation working together, the users are identified via our links with Norfolk constabulary, children’s services, youth offending teams and community wardens.


Project Summary
A total of 4849 project users have attended East Coast Kiting sessions over a two year pilot in Great Yarmouth. This has been achieved via access to schools through the local school sports partnership. We have successfully offered a large number of after school clubs to both middle and high schools in the partnership averaging 11 school clubs per week between April to October attracting an average of 22 students per club.

70% of all participants do not attend any other sporting club and participate in no other organised sessions of activity. After completing a four month cycle of activity with East Coast Kiting we have seen a 50% increase in activity rates from participants including club membership outside of the project.


East Coast Kiting Project Expansion
2007 will see the expansion of East Coast Kiting into Active – X. This is a new umbrella club that will look to develop the success of our kite sports project. We are expanding our kiting activities to include a kite surfing club, kite buggy – land board club, kayaking club, power boating, water-skiing and wake boarding. This will all be centred from a club base attained from a current funding application through Sport England. It is hoped that as well as continuing to work with our core users we will appeal to an older and wider demographic.

I would also recommend you check out my site www.kitesportsinschools.org This is my one stop shop including videos, case studies, equipment information and advise from a range of partners supporting this initiative. As East Coast Kiting was the first project of its kind I am able to advise and help other projects set up.

* The Active People survey has since revealed this figure as 20.5% in the East of England for 3 x 30mins per week in Sport and Active Recreation.