T H E S M I T H I N S T I T U T E
The future of school and community sport
By Clive Efford MP Shadow Sports Minister
The success of school and community sport is central to changing attitudes among
future generations towards sport and physical activity. This publication brings together
the views of a highly respected group of people with expertise gained from years of
experience in researching, organising, planning and delivering sport and physical activity.
It sets out the vital importance of teaching sport in our schools and the devastating
effects of dismantling the network of school sport partnerships. SSPs were the foundation
on which sport in our schools and communities could have been developed. Instead, we
have spent the past three years trying to recover from the decision to remove the ring
fence from their funding. In too many places, head teachers have been compelled to cut
the money for sport, leading to a patchwork of provision.
Getting the 2012 Olympic legacy right is absolutely vital for the good of millions of
individuals and for the nation as a whole. Even without all the recent successes in UK
sports, we would still need to have this debate. The cost to the economy of people
developing illnesses owing to inactivity is set to more than triple by 2050, to £49 billion
a year. That figure alone should make governments sit up and take note.
First, we must get the terminology correct: when we use the word “sport” we mean every
form of physical recreational activity for people of all ages and all abilities. That does
not mean the anti-competition dogma of “prizes for all” as the Government has tried to
portray this approach in order to justify its cuts to SSPs; it is a pragmatic acceptance that
people gain inspiration in a multitude of different ways, and a sports policy that does not
recognise this fact is doomed to failure.
The importance of our schools in instilling in the younger generation the sporting habit
for a lifetime is recognised by all of the contributors to the volume, but the importance
of physical literacy being learned through play is also highlighted, and this starts before
school age. Physical literacy must be nurtured in children from day one. Time and again
the writers stress the importance of getting this right, because it is key to opening the
minds of children to the joy they can get from physical activities.
Sue Tibballs refers to the importance of parents providing the opportunities for play
that will instil the right attitudes in children from the earliest ages. Dean Horridge refers
to the “journey to sport” and “focusing on engagement of all in physical activity”. He
then goes on to describe the transition into competitive sport, emphasising the need
for children to experience the enjoyment of sport and develop their physical capacity in
their early years.
Without the basic physical skills that can be learned early in life, children can become
isolated when they are asked to get involved in activities that make them feel
uncomfortable or clumsy. Even at very young ages, they become alert to these situations
and can develop strategies to avoid them. These negative feelings will lead to a lifetime’s
disconnection from sporting activities if left unchallenged, and can lead to a hatred of
PE and sport by the time a child reaches secondary school.
Sue Campbell raises the question of whether we attach the status to PE that it should
have. She makes the case for sport, stating: “From the first years of a child’s life to a
young adult’s first venture into the world of employment, sport has an unparalleled
ability to aid development, boost learning and bring out the best in everyone.” Kathy
Armour quotes the national curriculum for PE, which states that children will “learn
about the value of healthy active lifestyles”, and points out this is exactly what it does
not do for many children.
Barry Horne, writing from the perspective of inclusion for children with disabilities, states
that we fail to equip teachers and coaches with the skills to give them the confidence
to organise inclusive activities. Tibballs, again, refers to the excellent study conducted
on behalf of the Women in Sport & Fitness Foundation which illustrates how young
women can be put off sport for life by the way in which PE is taught in our schools. All
the contributions come to the conclusion that improving teacher training, monitoring
the quality of PE lessons and listening to young people are all key to improving the
experience of children.
Campbell also points out that primary teachers get as little as 10 hours of tuition on PE
and makes the case for teacher training to be reviewed. She emphasises the need for PE
to be taught by qualified specialists and that modified sport coaching can be introduced
at ages seven to 11. As many of the writers point out, there is no single formula that
will work for every individual. In some cases, coaching in a specific sport may provide
the spark of inspiration that is required, but this cannot happen without children being
taught the core physical literacy and skills that can come only with high-quality PE
teaching. Peter Crowe asks whether the inspectors “understand the significance and
importance” of sport in our schools.
Whether teaching or coaching, practitioners need to be equipped to meet the diverse
needs of the young people placed in their charge. Training for primary teachers must be
reviewed to give them the knowledge and understanding that will enable them to deliver
good-quality PE and sports education. Similarly, it does not automatically follow that
because someone has a coaching qualification, they can teach young children. Coaches
must be trained to understand what is required when teaching children. The point that
bad PE lessons and bad coaching sessions both have the same devastating consequences
on attitudes is repeated several times. Consistent monitoring is highlighted as essential
to ensure high standards of delivery.
Several references are made to the potential for too much emphasis on competitive
sport to drive people away and become a barrier to participation. Yet a policy that aims
to increase overall participation in physical activities is not exclusive of competition.
Politicians must have the confidence to emphasise the enjoyment of sport and build
a fully inclusive framework of sport from the foundations of mass participation. Who
knows whether a child will want to compete in a particular sport unless they have been
given the basic physical attributes to even try it in the first place? Who knows how many
future champions may be inspired in this way?
Peter Crowe illustrates the successes achieved under school sport partnerships and
discusses why the cuts they have suffered are so counterproductive in a variety of ways
other than for sport, including educational, emotional and social development. SSPs
created networks of sports practitioners in clusters of schools, which became catalysts
for greater co-operation between primary and secondary schools in their areas. Many
head teachers gave sport a higher priority in their schools as a consequence of becoming
part of an SSP. Overall, SSPs generated significant increases in general participation as
well as furthering competitive sporting activity.
The structures that SSPs created are one of the reasons for their success. Several of the
writers refer to the need for similar structures to those that existed under SSPs to be
created in local communities where they have disappeared, following the removal of
£162 million of funding for SSPs in 2010.
The case is also made for these networks to include community sport. Several contributors
call for the barriers that exist between school and community sport to be removed by
creating stronger links between schools and neighbouring sports clubs. I have seen many
examples where young people’s inhibitions have been overcome because a coach from
a local club has provided a welcoming face and got them involved in a community club.
This is not the solution to the entire problem of young people dropping out of sport
during their teenage years, but where young people have the motivation, these kinds of
networks can provide the means for them to stay actively involved in sport.
Alan Watkinson was the PE teacher who spotted the talent of Mo Farah as a schoolchild.
He explains that it was his link with the community club that was the key to Mo getting
involved in athletics. Watkinson writes with an enormous breadth of knowledge of
community and school sport, and he explains how easily Farah’s talent could have been
missed had he not facilitated the link to the community sports club. Watkinson also
demonstrates how sport provided more than just coaching support, and that this was
vital to Farah becoming the person that he is today. I have seen several examples of
coaches with links to community-based clubs providing the introduction for young
people at their local sports clubs. This is one of the benefits to be gained from cultivating
closer working partnerships between school and community sport.
Sport has enormous potential to build community cohesion. There are numerous
examples of people who offer their time freely to organise, manage and coach sport in
their local communities. It has been used to build stronger communities; to fight crime,
tackle antisocial behaviour, divert young people away from crime and build individual
self-esteem. Many people have been given their first experience of work after long
periods of unemployment, or having had a bad experience of school education, through
becoming involved in community-based sports activities. All of this is now taking place
in many communities underpinned by thousands of volunteers. Any local sport network
must encourage and support these types of activities and the volunteers that keep them
going.
Jane Ashworth, Chief Executive of StreetGames, highlights the social aspects of sport
participation. She gives us statistical evidence of the impact of lower participation
among young people from low-income households, which has “multiple consequences
that reproduce inequality across a wide breadth of concerns”. The contribution of
Sporting Equals chief executive Arun Kang reminds us that we need to develop our
understanding of how to reach diverse communities if we are to tackle all forms of social
exclusion. Ashworth and Kang both make the point that increasing participation alone
is not enough. Ashworth also reminds us to look beyond the headline figures: “Raising
participation as a whole does not necessarily increase participation among the most
disadvantaged.” This really brings home the need to get sport education right in our
schools to make it easier for people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds,
to get into the habit of sport for life.
The experts writing in this publication recognise the capacity sport has to change lives
and communities. They know that in order to deliver the legacy, we have to build the
capacity to empower local people to make things happen in their communities. As
Watkinson says: “In the brief window that we have to make the most of the Olympic
buzz, we need to commit the investment to people and partnerships; we need to create
structures that can make a real difference.”
To achieve this, government must play its part. What is needed is a consistent strategy
that cuts across all government departments; one that will enhance the sort of activity
at local level that we saw under SSPs and will bring schools and community sport
closer together. This must be delivered with a consensus across political parties, but also
including the people who are involved in sport at every level. Sport has suffered from too
many changes of policy in recent years, and it is the duty of any government to set out
a long-term strategy upon which we can all agree.
If we succeed, people will look back on this era as the one in which we fundamentally
changed the culture of Britain, stitching physical recreational activity into the psyche of
the nation – “emphasising the need to change cultural and social ingrained attitudes”,
as Tibballs writes. To do that, we must get it right from the first day a child is born,
and continue to do so throughout their school years. Only then do we have a chance
of delivering a sporting legacy that will inspire future generations to achieve long and
healthy lives.
