38 SCHOOL SPORT
sportsmanagement.co.uk Issue 123 • 27 June 2016
Dinner time sports An innovative programme which trains ‘dinner ladies’ – lunchtime assistants – and other school staff to deliver sports sessions during breaks has engaged and activated more than 15,000 children in inner city London Tom Walker • managing editor • Sports Management
H
ow do you get inner city school children – notoriously hard to engage in after school activities – to do more sport? The answer could be to engage them during lunch times. A project which does just this, by upskilling lunchtime assistants and other school staff to deliver sports sessions during lunch times, is claiming remarkable results. Called Engage To Compete (ETC), the initiative is being run by youth activity specialist Fit For Sport and has been so successful that it has now secured Sport England funding and is being expanded in two London boroughs.
TRANSFORMING BEHAVIOUR So far, the campaign has trained more than 700 school staff to deliver physical activity sessions at 44 schools across the boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Sandwell. Staff were shown how to engage children in activity and help them achieve the government guideline of 60 minutes of activity a day for every child. Using lunchtime activities as a focal point, staff were given guidance on how to increase physical activity, develop competition and deliver the Engage To Compete challenge: a set of simple challenges to measure children’s physical literacy and fitness levels including stamina, agility and co-ordination.
The schools have reported improvements in children’s behaviour and concentration levels, as well as reductions in staff time spent dealing with incidents from the playground
Fit For Sport coaches provide school staff with training
The sessions have improved children’s physical literacy skills
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