By 2011, the government have set a target for the national average of sports participation up to 65%- currently, the national average is at 44%.  Are your schools up to the challenge?

Intervention work

On receiving the results of the PESSYP surveys, a lot of partnerships tend to make the big mistake of setting their competition calendar out in exactly the same way as they always have. However, to raise the average of the partnership, the best way to work is to specifically target failing schools by working out an intervention strategy. You can:

• Work out which years are the strongest in competition participation and sustain that statistic

• Understand who are weakest and raise the quality of competition

• By doing this you will raise the sports participation average in your partnership significantly

Focus and targeting with Active

Virtual competition can help raise the average percentage of sports participation considerably, you can not only ensure that young people are taking part, but you can also sustain this participation.

Virtual competition breaks down the traditional barriers that usually hold schools back from encouraging young people to engage with sport.  It allows students to take part in inter and intra school sports at the same time and there are:

• No transport costs

• No organisational costs or hassle

• Opportunities to set up competitions without the need for expensive equipment

• Easy to view formats, which means that you can see which years and students need help in an instance

• Prospects for gaining 100% participation

An Example

A lot of partnerships find that the transition period between years 6 and 7 is where a big slump in sports participation occurs because there simply are not enough opportunities in that secondary school to compete. Where there may have been four football teams in year 6, there is only one or two in year 7.  Virtual competition can be used as an efficient and inexpensive way to provide more sporting opportunities. It can allow for a sustainable competition that isn’t just a one off and keeps these young people developing their sports skills.

If you start to intervene with specific years in schools, you are dealing with those issues that are dragging your percentile average down.  You will see a dramatic difference in a relatively short space of time, and perhaps you won’t be dreading next year’s PESSYP survey as much.

If you would like to run virtual competition using Active or simply want more information please contact us