Sport England’s Chairman, Derek Mapp, and Chief Executive, Jennie Price, today warmly welcomed the Prime Minister’s children and young people’s sports announcement.
“The injection of another £100m is good news for school sport and good news for community sport. It means more coaches working across schools and community sports clubs and extends the offer to 16-19 year olds. Sport England will do its part in getting 5-16 year olds to do 5 hours of sport each week and 16-19 year olds to do 3 hours”.
“Extending the offer to 16-19 year olds will help address the dramatic drop in sports participation which happens at 16. At the moment 33,000 young people stop doing sport after the age of 16 every year. The Prime Minister’s announcement will help bring the worlds of school and community sport together to create a seamless sporting pathway for youngsters of all levels of ability.”
“We know there is a sport that can reach out to every child and every young person. Sport England’s job is to make participating in sport fun, easy to do and life enhancing”.
Working in partnership with the Youth Sport Trust, Sport England’s role in the National School Sport Strategy has been to invest in creating new and stronger links between schools and sports clubs. Through the Step into Sport programme it has provided leadership and volunteering opportunities for older children and young people in schools and the wider community. This has increased the percentage of youngsters participating in club sport to 27% last year, up from 19% in 2003. The percentage of young people actively engaged in sports leadership and volunteering has risen from 9% in 2003 to 13% last year.
The funding also builds on our £20 million investment into a network of 3000 community sports coaches working with schools and clubs. The coaches have been deployed through our network of 49 County Sports Partnerships across England.
Together this provides a firm foundation on which to take participation to the next level.
To read the full announcement click here
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