Site map << You are here: Home » Culture in the South East » The cultural sector in the South East » Sport » Sport: the benefits » Boosting educational attainment » Boosting educational attainment

Boosting educational attainment

Research from a sample of schools that have obtained the National Healthy Schools Standard, where pupils are participating in exercise regularly and adopting a healthy diet, has indicated that the performance of pupils in reading, writing, maths and science is better than at other schools not yet involved in the programme. Schools that had already achieved healthy schools status reported a greater rate of progress over two years in the proportion of 11 year old pupils achieving level four in English, maths and science at the end of Key Stage Two. The improvement was small – 0.5 per cent in each of the three subjects – but universal. Under government targets half of all schools must achieve the status by December 2006 reaching minimum standards in healthy eating, physical activity, emotional health and well being.

In addition research carried out on the educational outcomes and value added by specialist schools, including sports colleges, identified that they achieved better GCSE results than non specialist comprehensive schools and that improvement exceeded that predicted. In 2003, 48.4 per cent of all sports colleges achieved 5+ A* to C GCSEs against a non-specialist school average of 47.1 per cent. Trends in improvements in GCSE results over the last 3 years show that some individual sports colleges have achieved much more significant increases. Such improvement will inevitably come from a combination of many different change factors within the school environment, but sport will be one contributing element.

Attracting people to study
Sport can provide alternative learning options and a ‘hook’ through which young people can be engaged in learning activity outside of the school environment. An example of this is the Playing for Success initiative which aims to raise educational standards by setting up study support centres in professional football clubs and other venues, using sport as the medium to support work in literacy, numeracy and ICT.

In schemes such as these the contribution that sport is making is often indirect, through its ability to attract participants in the first place and maintain their interest in an educational programme. However this enables educationalists to work with and provide a high level of support to the participants, often resulting in significant progress.

Gaining new skills and qualifications
Major sports projects and events also present opportunities for workforce training and the development of new skills, as demonstrated by the proposals for the London 2012 Olympics. Sport provides alternative options and activities, outside of mainstream training and education provision, in which transferable skills and qualifications can be obtained, particularly among those hardest to place in employment. For example the government’s New Deal scheme assists unemployed people to train, undertake a qualification and gain work experience as a sports assistant working alongside school sport coordinators in local schools. It is seen as a way for individuals to gain transferable skills upon which to build their future careers and to obtain employment within and outside of the sports sector.

 

copyright © 2008 Southeast Cultural Observatory