School Sport Action Plan?

Posted: Thu, 04 Oct 2018 11:02

School  Sport Action Plan?

News emerged this week from the Tory Party conference that the government was announcing an 'Action Plan'

"A cross-government school sport and activity action plan will consider ways to ensure that all children have access to quality, protected PE and sport sessions during the school week and opportunities to be physically active throughout the school day." They said.

From experience one has to be cautious about 'announcements' at Party conferences. Some are genuine and real policies held back for the conference season. Ministers standing at the podium need to be able to say that they are pleased to announce x,y,z to their party faithful each year. I was involved in a few. Some were real breakthrough's like establishing Supporters Direct but many more were a little empty of substance.

An 'Action Plan' or Summit are usually used to push out another document and photo opportunity but have to be scrutinised carefully for any substantial change. Whilst its great to see there is at least some fresh thinking being allowed to take place around schools sport (their words not ours!) its a little worrying that a limited number of NGBs are in discussions. It looks like we are going back 20 years!

It is easy to be sceptical when it comes to schools and PE, PA, Physical Literacy as there has been way too much meddling and not enough long term strategic thinking and funding. I don't hold out much hope that this is anything more than a light announcement - but I hope my cynicism is proved wrong.

Hopefully enough people can rally around this opportunity and really make a difference in schools as we are cleary not making the right impact at the moment!

Tags: Sports Policy, featured