Sport England have launched a new five-year youth and community sport strategy that will deliver on Lord Coe’s Games bid promise to inspire a generation to get involved in sport.
1 billion of National Lottery and Exchequer funding will be invested to create a meaningful and lasting community sport legacy by growing sports participation at the grassroots level.
One of the major impacts on the FE sector will be the introduction of 150 working across most of the 347 general FE colleges. Click here for further details of the strategy.
In follow up to the new strategy, Katie Mitchell- Head of Higher & Further Education, Sport England has provided further insight to the FE College Sports Makers Programme:
Letter to the sector from Katie Mitchell, Sport England
New Sport England Strategy
The new strategy is great news for the college sector. Through the work Sport England has been doing with the Association of Colleges (AoC) and the college sector over the past 18 months, and via the regional FE pilot projects that are currently underway, we have seen a sector that is enthusiastic, capable and ready to work with us on increasing student participation.
Set out below is a little more detail on the FE proposal. We of course want to work with you all in the coming months to firm this up.
A network of 150 full time College Sport Makers working in an individual or group of FE colleges based on student demographics, geography and local need will be created. This will help with the capacity concern that colleges are raising with Sport England, as well as the issue that community sport regularly face around engaging with the college sector.
One of the key roles of the posts will be to land NGB products and programmes within the FE sector. They will focus on sports development initiatives, linking with the community to increase opportunities for students both within college and in the local area, with an overall aim of raising FE student sports participation. As a result, we are looking for sports development specialists.
The detail behind the posts and the process is still to be worked up and it is imperative that Sport England work with the AoC and the sector to develop this work further. These posts will not be imposed on colleges, nor will it be a one size fits all approach.
For those colleges that do not feel they need additional capacity via these new posts, we are also proposing a moderate funding pot dedicated to FE for colleges to apply for a small grant to assist with individual delivery problems.
In terms of the learning that we hope to gain from the FE Exchequer pilot projects, this is still absolutely vital. The learning will ensure that we can get the basic role of the College Sport Maker right, ensuring that they are working on the right sorts of projects that we know can increase student participation. In addition, the learning from the pilots will also shape the criteria for the proposed FE delivery funding pot.
We anticipate staging a FE workshop for colleges and other sector partners in the next month or so to discuss in more detail these exciting opportunities with you.
I have attached* for information a short leaflet setting out some more detail on the new Sport England Strategy. It prints best as an A3 double sided document.
