Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Dame Kelly Holmes have joined forces to launch the Youth Sport Trust’s first National School Sport Week that runs from Monday 30 June. The aim is to encourage three million state secondary students to participate in PE and school sport during the week.
Holmes, a National School Sports Champion, suggested the scheme to Gordon Brown at this year’s Youth Sports Trust’s Sports Colleges Conference, and is calling for every state secondary school in the UK to get involved.
Steve Grainger, chief executive of the Youth Sport Trust (YST), said: “National School Sport Week is a great opportunity to celebrate all the great work already taking place and to set the bar even higher, as we look to re-invigorate inter- and intra-school competition for thousands more youngsters.”
Schools and pupils will organise their own week based on events suggested by the YST, including sport festivals to celebrate TOP Sportsability – the YST’s programme for sport activities that integrate disabled and able-bodied young people.
Students will be expected to participate in organising events as part of the YST’s TOP Links programme, a training scheme which encourages young people to manage sport and dance festivals within their school and local primary schools. TOP Links is part of the YST’s Step into Sport programme.
Competition managers, supplied by the Youth Sport Trust, will provide guidance to schools when organising inter-school competitions.
PM Gordon Brown insists: “We need to put school sport back where it belongs - playing a central role in the school day. National School Sport Week is a great opportunity to do just that and I'm confident that it will help get young people fit and physically healthy.
“Whatever their natural ability and whatever their age, sport and activity can make our children healthier, while raising self-confidence and self-esteem. It develops teamwork, discipline and a sense of fair play. Values that will stand young people and the country in good stead."
The celebratory week, which is supported by Norwich Union, is part of the DCMS and DCSF’s
PE and Sport Strategy for Young People – a series of initiatives with the long-term aim of providing youngsters with five hours of sport a week by 2012.
