Skills for Life in Sport team lead and Manager, Julie Rotchell, talks engaging more children in sport and physical activity as YST launches its new report on the future of sport in school.
What will school sports look like in 20 years’ time? What sports will they be playing and how will technology play a part in the way children learn physical skills? And will we have managed to engage every child in a way that encourages them to stay active for the rest of their lives? All these questions and more are being looked at in the new report from the Youth Sport Trust (YST) – The Class of 2035: Promoting a brighter and more active future for the youth of tomorrow. And it’s well worth a read.
At we’re focused on getting every child hooked on sport for life. And not just a sport, any sport. I firmly believe, we as a nation should stand behind anything that encourages children to learn the basic physical skills to be active, helps them to enjoy being active and encourages them to stay active, regardless of the sport or the child’s ability.
Every child has the right to be physically literate – it’s as important as reading, writing and counting. Physical literacy is about building confidence and motivation as well as developing their skills and knowledge. There’s no point in kitting a child up with a bat and a ball and telling them to knock it out of the park when they are swinging and missing every shot. It only serves to erode confidence and demotivate. And that’s the biggest barrier to the future health and wellbeing of future generations. Our research, as well as YST’s, shows that children stay motivated when they enjoy a sport. They enjoy a sport when they have the skills needed to play it. Basic skills like balance and co-ordination.
Schools play a huge role in shaping children’s attitudes to sport and being physically active from an early age. They are often where children experience sport for the first time and as we know, that first experience is key to getting children hooked. If they don’t enjoy it, feel left out or embarrassed because they don’t know the rules or can’t catch a ball for example, it’s unlikely that they’ll want to play again.
We have developed the Physical Literacy Programme for Schools (PLPS) to ensure we avoid such scenarios in the future. It is currently on-going in 66 schools across Wales, and it’s starting to demonstrate real success. It has shown how a focused child-centred approach can change attitudes and abilities. But further progress relies on a shift in thinking, a change to the curriculum and help from colleagues not only in education but in health and sport.
We need to shift the focus away from just attainment and towards regular physical activity, in any shape or form. The Donaldson review calls for ‘healthy confident individuals’ to be at the centre of education and if we’re going to do this we need to be asking children about what motivates them and listening to their answers. And that’s one of the main reasons we run the School Sport Survey – to give children and young people the opportunity to share their views on how sport is delivered in schools. People are different and each child will have different needs and motivations but we know from our research that children like doing things with friends and feeling part of something and we know that they feel good when they achieve personal success. This should be considered each time we try to engage a child in any form of physical activity.
There’s not doubt that the way we deliver sport and physical education in schools and indeed at community level and in the home will need to change if we’re going to ensure more children are active and healthy in the future. Technology will play a significant role in that. It’s important that we embrace it and ensure it serves as a tool to complement the delivery of physical education, and does not become a substitute for it. And there are many ways it can be incorporated. Personally, I love some of the ideas set out in YST’s report which include using it to track development in a fun and engaging way as well as to gain feedback from children. In fact, is looking at developing an app that utilises gaming technology to reward physical activity.
I think the main learning from both YST’s report and our own research is that no one will engage in physical activity, adult or child, if they don’t enjoy it, feel they can do well, feel part of something or feel they can develop. If we think about this each time we look to engage a child in physical activity we’ll be developing intrinsic motivation and this is crucial if we’re going to ensure the development of happy, confident children, healthy and active for life.
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