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The aim of Active Schools

 

The fundamental aim of the Active Schools is to offer children and young people the opportunities and motivation to adopt active, healthy lifestyles, now and into adulthood.  We are responsible for developing and supporting an infrastructure for Active Schools within the school and wider community.  By recruiting, supporting and sustaining a network of volunteers, coaches, leaders and teachers who in turn deliver physical activity and sport before, during and after school and in the wider community. 

 

The active schools logo

Our Key Outcomes

  • To continue to increase opportunities for all children and young people to be engaged in physical activity and sport.

  • To strengthen pathways to participation and performance through sustainable school to community links.

 

Delivery through

  • building a sustainable volunteer network and providing an appropriate volunteering infrastructure for Active Schools within the school and wider community 

  • providing opportunities for all children and young people to participate in physical activity & sport and enabling the creation of pathways from the school to the wider community

  • increasing participation amongst “hard to reach groups” by adopting a targeted approach towards:

    1. girls and young women

    2. children and young people with a disability

    3. children and young people in areas of socio-economic disadvantage

    4. children and young people not currently involved in physical activity and sport

  • embedding the effective integration, planning, management and delivery of Active Schools within local authorities

 

Partnerships

National partnerships have been forged with a number of agencies involved in physical activity and health; e.g. sportscotland, The Youth Sport Trust, YDance, NHS Health Scotland and Clubgolf. These are important as Active Schools are able to access funding for both our network and a variety of activity initiatives such as Tennis, Dance/Aerobics, playground developments and programmes that link to the curriculum such as TOPS and The Class Moves.

 

Strong partnerships also exist with a variety of local agencies including; Health Promoting Schools, Sports Development, Outdoor Education, The Tullochan Trust and West Dunbarton’s Council for Voluntary services. Though for example, in the case of developing active playgrounds, Active Schools has a clear sole responsibility for programme implementation and development. In many cases where priorities of the services combine, Active Schools becomes the main marketing and information link to schools, acting as a catalyst to activity by assisting in the promotion of our partners programmes and events. The effect of this partnership link is visible in the increasing attendances at a variety of sporting opportunities provided by partners throughout the year, increasingly attributed by Sports Development and others to the highly successful partnerships that exist.

 

Active Schools role compliments the existing development work happening throughout the authority, where necessary plugging gaps in provision and creating new opportunities that otherwise would not exist for children and young people within schools and the wider community to physically active and to lead healthy lifestyles.