UK School Sport Partnerships Funding Update
In the last few years many schools have been working on improving the health, fitness and take-up of sport by their puils by joining a local School Sport Partnership (SSP).
The aim of these arrangements are to improve 1) Pupil concentration, commitment and self-esteem, so leading to higher attendance, better behaviour and attainment; 2) Fitness levels, as active children are less likely to be obese and more likely to pursue sporting activities as adults; 3) Success in international competition by ensuring talented young sports people have a clear pathway to elite sport and competition whatever their circumstances.
A School Sport Partnership will have a Partnership Development Manager, up to 8 School Sport Co-ordinators and 45 primary and Special School Link teachers. The Manager will be a full time role, usually based at a Sports College. The Co-ordinators are based at Secondary Schools, while the Link Teachers are at Primary Schools. The Managers develop the startegy and links with key partners while the Co-ordinators look at improving sport opportunities. Link Teachers focus on improving PE and sport in their own schools.
The Coalition Government announced in November 2010 that funding for SSP’s was to be withdrawn as a result of the Public Spending Review. Government ministers claimed that the SSP programme had not acheived its goals of increasing physical activity among the youth.
However, most commentators believe that School Sport Partnerships have had a beneficial impact and that statistics show that the number of school children doing more than two hours competitive sport a week has risen over the last few years.
However, there is disagreement about how successful the initiative has been in boosting participation in terms of the money spent. The government says only one in five pupils between the ages of 5 and 16 are regularly taking part in inter-school sport while only 2 out of 5 pupils are doing the same within their schools. Given 2.4bn had been spent by the previous Labour Government on its sports and PE strategy David Cameron (Prime Minister) has described this record as “woeful and terrible”.
Following that decision more than 70 top British athletes wrote to the Prime Minister saying that ending the partnerships was ill-conceived and risked the efforts to deliver a legacy of encouraging sports participation from the 2012 London Olympics.
In somewhat of a u-turn the Education Secretary then announced in December 2010 a partial reprieve for school sport funding. He said that SSP’s would continue to be funded to July 2011 to the tune of 47m and 65m per annum would also be made available to fund a simpler school sport initiative for 2011/12 and 2012/13.
In making the announcement Michael Gove explained that he wants PE teachers to be able to embed sport into schools and put more emaphasis on sport as a competitive activity.
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