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| Young Sports Leaders take a healthy and early lead in Northumberland Middle Schools |
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There is an increasing emphasis being placed on the need for our young people to establish and develop healthy lifestyles, increase physical activity levels, improve participation rates and develop positive attitudes towards health and well being.
Pupils in healthy schools need to be provided with a broad range of opportunities that encourage them to engage in positive and enjoyable physical activities.
NB To improve health, the current National recommendations in England are that:
Children and young people should aim to participate in physical activity (P.A.) of at least moderate intensity for one hour every day
To assist some of our middle schools in addressing these needs Northumberland Healthy Schools and several of our School Sport partnerships have been rolling out a highly popular and well received Young leaders training programme.
About the Award :
The award is a programme of leadership training for young people, aged between 9 and 13 yrs, that promotes them working with younger children and teaching Sports leadership skills through a range of active games and positive physical activities. It’s ultimate aim is to develop students potential leadership qualities and abilities so that they can assist their school in:
• Increasing levels and numbers of pupils involved in purposeful P.A.
• Reducing any possible negative behaviour at lunchtimes e.g. Bullying ,racism etc
• Improving levels of cooperation ,responsibility ,ownership etc (Citizenship ,G and T strands)
The Northumberland Healthy Schools programme has been able to fund and deliver training, starter equipment bags and young leader’s uniforms to ten Northumberland Middle schools who successfully applied for the project.
(Bothal MS Ashington ;Corbridge MS, Blyth Delaval MS ,Hexham MS; Belford St Marys MS; Seaton Hirst C of E MS ; Seahouses MS ;South Tyne dale MS;Thomas Percy RC MS ; Whytrig MS)
These schools have now completed their training and with over 100 young leaders in place we look forward to hearing and sharing their success stories.
In fact we are already starting to hear and receive great impact feedback (ref below quote) on how they are inspiring, leading and motivating younger children in their schools.
“The Young Sports Leaders Award has been a resounding success at Seahouses Middle School! The young leaders are assisting in running 8 lunchtime clubs after Easter for our year 5 and 6s. These clubs include tennis, cricket, rounders and athletics. The leaders were very positive about their training with many of them saying that they had surprised themselves by actually being able to lead a group of children. It was great to see some of the less confident pupils growing in stature as a result of the award. A number of their parents commented on how good they thought it had been for their child.”
Julie Harris Headteacher Seahouses Middle School
What next?
As these young leaders are beginning to build and extend their talents ,skills ,knowledge and confidence we are asking their schools to complete and return a success story proforma - so that we can and celebrate and share their good practice with others via the Northumberland PE and School Sport website http://npess.northumberland.gov.uk/
Schools and leaders who successfully see the project through from March – July will be invited to participate in an end of year celebration event at Kirkley Hall ,Ponteland where they will be presented with certificates and participate in a variety of problem solving challenge activities . More to follow on this event in May.
Future developments :
Thanks to the popularity and early impact seen to date , the Healthy Schools programme are keen to work with our school sport partnerships in identifying a further 10 schools that may benefit from a repeat of the initiative in from Autumn 07 – June 08 .
To find out more about the young leaders programme in Northumberland contact :
Andy Brown Physical Education and School Sport Consultant NCC at andbrown@northumberkland.gov.uk
Or
your school Sport Partnership Manager /School Sport Coordinator.
For National information on Sports Leaders UK go to ;
http://www.sportsleaders.org/Home/Content.aspx?PageID=TheAwards
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