Friday 7 September 2007
With the new school term now underway sportscotland’s Active Schools Network is continuing to have a positive impact on the number and range of physical activity and sport opportunities for school aged youngsters in the Highlands. Active Schools plays a key role in the Scottish Government’s drive to promote active, healthy lifestyles.
Highland Council covers the largest geographical area in Scotland which demands a more innovative approach to establishing after school clubs as part of Active Schools. Location and transport is an initial consideration for all activities offered by the Active Schools team, yet regardless of these hurdles, more and more children are benefiting from their work.
Thanks to a subsidised transport programme, schools in the rural areas of Ardnamurchan and Morvern come together to participate in after schools clubs. Other projects include all the primary and secondary schools organising and participating in three sports festivals encompassing traditional dance, shinty and highland games. These events provide a vital opportunity for the area’s most rural children to mix, and with youngsters being grouped with high school pupils for some activities, this enables them to gain invaluable experience of the secondary school they will later attend.
Councillor Bill Fearnie, Chairman of Education, Culture and Sport Committee said: “All involved in Active Schools, teachers, coordinators, students and the clubs, have embraced everything that is trying to be achieved and are taking every opportunity to get involved and increase activity levels, while also bringing children from all over the area closer together.
"Having such a large area to cover is an additional challenge that we are working hard to overcome and ensure that children in the Highlands continue to benefit from Active Schools."
During a visit to a primary school in East Renfrewshire today to see Active Schools action, Minister for Communities and Sport, Stewart Maxwell, said: “Active Schools has been successful in many parts of Scotland in encouraging more youngsters to play sport and try a wider range of sporting activities. I’m eager to assess the progress made so far and to identify areas of further improvement, to make sure as many young people as possible are benefiting from better sports provision.
“These initiatives in Highland are excellent examples of how difficulties associated with isolated geography can be overcome to allow local children to take part in an exciting activity programme.”
The Active Schools Network is managed by sportscotland and forms part of the Scottish Government’s Healthy Living Campaign which aims to offer children the motivation and opportunities to adopt active, healthy lifestyles. Through its ring fenced investment of £12 million per annum, sportscotland works with Scotland’s local authorities to support, develop and monitor the Active Schools Network by providing a national framework for delivery at local level. sportscotland also manages the forum for key partners to share good practice, contributing to the further development and success of Active Schools, supported by a web-based staff support programme.
Julia Bracewell OBE, Chair of sportscotland said: “Active Schools is now a cornerstone of daily life within a great many schools across Scotland.
“As the national agency for sport in Scotland, we believe that Active Schools is making a considerable difference to lives of children throughout the Highlands. The Active Schools teams have done extremely well throughout the area and haven’t allowed any of the geographical issues, that may occur within Scotland’s largest local authority area, to hamper their excellent work.”
1. For further information about Active Schools in Highland, please contact Alan Clark, Active Schools Manager on 01349 868616.
2. Active Schools is a key element of the Scottish Government’s Healthy Living Campaign and is also part of the drive towards a healthier Scotland; a commitment outlined in the National Physical Activity Strategy, Let’s Make Scotland More Active. It also supports the Government’s aim to for all schools to be health promoting.
3. A key pillar in Active Schools is the development of a network of professionals to organise and coordinate activity – the ‘Active Schools Network’.
4. Active Schools is delivered by 32 Active Schools Managers, 293 Active Schools Coordinators (Primary), 343 Active Schools Coordinators (Secondary), 15 Additional Support Needs Coordinators (ASN). By the end of 2005-2006 over 20,000 people helped lead activity sessions with more than half of them unpaid volunteers.
5. In the 2005-06 school year 350,000 activity sessions took place in schools with Active Schools Coordinators in post, in addition to timetabled PE, representing an average rise of 17 per cent on the previous year. For primary schools the increase was 53 per cent. More than 8.5 million participant sessions were held across a range of 69 activities from rugby and hockey to Scottish dance and organised playground games.
6. In sportscotland’s Corporate Plan 2007-2011 our priority work for Active Schools with Scotland’s local authorities is to support and develop the Active Schools Network by:
- working with local authorities to invest in and maintain the Active Schools Network staffing infrastructure;
- managing the Network to support it to:
- recruit, support and sustain volunteers to deliver quality activity sessions
- develop improved links between schools, clubs and the wider community
- connect children to Scottish Governing Body (SGB) pathways
- provide targeted activities to increase and promote opportunities for under-represented groups;
- delivering a programme of training and support to the Network including the development of the Active Schools Network Community website;
- monitoring and locally evaluate the Active Schools Network;
- working with local authorities and other key partners to implement the outcomes of the Active Schools Coordinator (Secondary) Review;
- working towards long term strengthening of the Network.
7. sportscotland is spending £12 million a year on the Active Schools Network as part of its baseline funding from the Scottish Executive.