Derbyshire Sport selected as 'trailblazer' for Extending Activities programme
Derbyshire Sport has been selected as a ‘trailblazer’ for the Extending Activities programme, which will extend the work of after-school and community clubs as part of the Government’s Five Hour Offer.
Community Sports Partnership trailblazers have been identified in each of the nine Sport England regions, and Sport England and the Youth Sport Trust have chosen Derbyshire Sport in the East Midlands.
The move means Derbyshire Sport is due to start delivering on its plan by April 1 – five months ahead of other CSPs in the region.
The Extending Activities programme will see an investment of £36m across England over three years, with a primary focus on out of school hours and club activity, both within schools and the community.
Activity will build on the existing Club Links and Step into Sport workstrands, and will help bring together the worlds of school and community sport, which will be a key factor in engaging the 50 per cent of children and young people who are currently classed as ‘semi-sporty’ and already do two or three hours of sport.
The current club network will also be strengthened and developed to allow new and different children and young people to take up the Five Hour Offer.
This work will include the improvement of traditional clubs to accommodate and appeal to a wider range of children and young people, and investment into new types of ‘clubs’ which may be more informal or offer different types of sports activity.
Work will also be done to better signpost opportunities, and to offer a wider range of introductory activity sessions on, or linked to, school sites to introduce young people to alternative activity.
The Five Hour Offer builds on the success in Derbyshire and across England of increasing the number of young people receiving two hours of high quality PE and sport, and further investment is now being made to increase this opportunity to five hours of sport a week.
For 5-16 year olds the offer will be made up of two hours high quality curriculum PE and three hours of sport beyond the curriculum delivered through a range of school, community and club providers.
The assumption is that as children grow older they will increasingly be directed towards club/community provision in a bid to get them used to doing sport outside of a school setting and slow and reverse the drop in sports participation which currently occurs at 16.
The additional funding also formally extends the reach of the strategy to 16-19 year olds for the first time, with this age group offered three hours of sport rather than five if they no longer take part in PE as part of the school curriculum.
In Derbyshire local planning has been taking place over the last four weeks to create the beginnings of the Extending Activities plan for Derbyshire.
Local planning meetings have been held, which have tried to pull as many key organisations around the table as possible, such as national governing bodies, school sports partnerships, local authorities and the Youth Service.
And despite short time frames Derbyshire Sport has successfully submitted the Extending Activities plan for Derbyshire for April to August 2008 thanks to the hard work of all partners involved.
Over the coming months planning for the delivery of Extending Activities will take place for years two and three of the programme, and this planning process looks set to include an even wider range of partners that will work through sport to increase the number of opportunities available to young people across Derbyshire to participate in high quality sport.