Activities for Young People |
Sport Unlimited
Following Gordon Brown's announcement to give all school children the chance to do five hours of sport a week, Sport England have announced a £36 million investment in ‘Sport Unlimited’ - a nationwide initiative to get more children and young people taking part in sports that interest them most outside of school.
The three-year programme will enable more 11-19 year olds to choose from a vast range of sports including several in which Team GB has excelled at the 2008 Olympics such as sailing and cycling as well as less traditional sports like dodgeball, snowboarding and American football. Sport Unlimited offers young people 10-week taster sessions in sports which they have requested and aims to get 300,000 participants to join clubs and continue with sport when the 10 weeks are up.
This will build on the previous target of children under 16 being required to do two hours a week within the national curriculum.
The Vision
The National vision is to ensure up to 900,000 'semi sporty' children and young people in the 5 to 19 age group participate in a further 2 hours per week of sporting activities. Achieved through attractive sports provision designed to stimulate and increase take-up and sustain participation. The definition of 'semi sport' is young people who are judged to currently participate in 3 hours of sport a week.
Each County Sports Partnerships (Northumberland Sport) across the Country have been tasked with delivering this ‘Sport Unlimited’ offer.
Each school term, a number of activities will take place for a duration of 10 weeks. Our target is not only to get thousands of young people to attend these sessions but also to ensure that they all attend at least 60% of those sessions.
To access this funding, we will work with local delivery partners to develop and produce action plans that represent all of our partners and deliver attractive programmes for young people.
One of the important benefits of the Sport Unlimited programme is that it will enable us to work together to create one holistic plan covering all the different funding streams and programmes that currently exist for Children and Young People (for example, 2 hours high quality PE, Club Links, Step into Sport, Community Sport Coach Scheme, Positive Futures, Out of School Hours Learning, NGB programmes and many more).
We are hoping that this programme will also enable us to make stronger links to the Local Authorities Local Area Agreement and Children and Young People’s plan.
A Practical Example
Please click here to download the Sports Unlimited Programme for the district of Alnwick.
If you have any queries or want any further information on Sport Unlimited please contact Neville Duncan.
