The delivery and enhancement of sporting opportunities on school
sites are crucial to both sport and education.
What is the situation?
At the moment, 76% of sports halls, 73% of artificial grass
pitches, 29% of swimming pools and 52% of grass pitches in England
are located within schools, colleges and other educational
institutions.
This means that a lot of the country’s sports facilities sit
redundant in the evening and at weekends, whilst at the same time
many sports clubs and teams are desperately crying out for
somewhere to play.
What can I do?
These webpages aim to help headteachers, governors, school
business managers and potential school partners understand the
benefits of community use, advise on the best possible
approach, and ensure that the work is sustainable and not a
burden.
If you have already introduced community sport to your school,
it will help you sustain this work and the delivery options section of this guidance offers
suggestions about how you could develop it.
The information in this guidance will help you attract
sufficient users to generate income, provide a good quality
service, and maintain full opportunities for your pupils without
affecting your core business.
What are the challenges and opportunities?
Schools are under increasing pressure as the education landscape
evolves and finances become tighter.
However there are opportunities for you to make better use of
your sporting facilities by opening them up to the local community
– an opportunity that could both help sustain community sport and
bring benefits to the school.
What are the benefits?
Schools are often the cornerstone of their local communities and
there are many advantages to opening up their facilities,
including:
- Educational attainment and
attendance
Schools that are proactive about community
use often experience educational benefits such as increased
educational attainment; improved attitudes and attendance amongst
pupils; engaged pupils who are at risk and extra opportunities for
school staff.
- Improved performance by underachieving
students
Organised sport can offer a number of
extra-curricular learning activities which can help young people
improve their numeracy and transferable skills.
A study in 2010 for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
revealed that an underachieving young person’s numeracy score can
increase by 29% if they particiapte in organised sport and their
transferable skills can improve by 12-16%.
- Training and career opportunities
Having
a vibrant community programme can provide citizenship opportunities
to pupils such as work experience and volunteering roles as leisure
attendants, coaches and officials. Opening up your facilities can
also help students to undertake sports NVQ, BTech and leadership
qualifications, as it enables them to be actively involved in
sports development and management.
- Increased funding opportunities
Taking a
positive approach to community use will stand your school in good
stead for any funding opportunities as funders seek to support
schools who proactively create partnerships and have strong links
with the community.
- Positive image and brand awareness
The
availability of your school’s sports facilities – however small –
will help improve sporting opportunities in your area and therefore
benefit local people. This will improve your prestige and standing
in the community and make the school more attractive to potential
students.
- Promotional opportunity in your
community
Facility use can encourage a wider and
deeper engagement from the local community with your school, for
example parents taking part in sports programmes at the school. It
can provide opportunities for a school to explain its values and
principles in simple terms.
- Sporting opportunities for staff and
pupils
Staff and pupils can benefit from on-site
community sport and coaching programmes, leading to a positive
healthy workforce and staff development. Developing good links with
clubs will not only provide opportunities within the school but
also smooth the progression for your pupils from school to club
sport. Sport England can provide guidance on club links to help you in this
area.
- Security
Having a sports programme on
site may reduce out of hours vandalism both through engagement of
the community and having a presence on site.
Is this solution suitable for my school?
Whatever type of school you are - an academy, a maintained
school or an independent school – and whatever type of facilities
you have – you have the potential to benefit both your school and
the local community. Almost every school or college has a valuable
supply of facilities and the integration of sport and sports clubs
into schools will help you and your local authority partners.
Where do I start?
As illustrated by the diagram below, there are five steps to
consider when embarking on opening up your school facilities. Click
on the links opposite to read our step-by-step guide to each
section.
