Hands In Air
[uncredited]
Play Sport is a community-based project set up by Nottinghamshire County Council in partnership with local sports providers. The project provides and supports sports coaching to young people in the development of fundamental movement skills, such as hand/eye coordination, strength, running, balance, agility, kicking, jumping and catching. Six multiskill coaches are working in after school clubs, voluntary sports clubs, village halls, parish council playing fields, leisure centres, FE colleges and school PE lessons over an initial period of three years.
"Before kids can move on to specialise in individual sports and become the next Beckham, Cooke or Flintoff, they need a basic grounding in the fundamental skills of all sports."
Play Sport is run across the rural areas of Nottinghamshire on the east side of the county where there has traditionally been a lack of funding available for sport. These are the districts of Bassetlaw, Newark and Sherwood and Rushcliffe. The project addresses a need identified by mainstream sports specific coaches, who have discovered that many children and young people are largely inactive and do not have the basic skills necessary in order to be able to consider participating in a specific sport.
Hands In Air
[uncredited]
Following both a national and local concern over the inactivity of many youngsters and the locally observed need for basic coordination skills training, Nottinghamshire County Council decided to run a programme of multi-skill training largely in the rural areas of the county. In order to access the youngsters who would benefit from an enhanced programme of multi-skill training, the project would work through Sports Development Officers in each local authority to access local contacts. These networks included schools and playgroups as well as local sports clubs. Using these established networks would mean the coaches could go into classes that were already set up and could enhance or add to the classes that were already running.
Play Sport Case Study