Former London 2012 chairman Lord Coe has spoken of his regret that school sport became a political football during the Olympic Games and called for a 10‑year legacy plan in the face of a mounting childhood obesity crisis. This is from the Guardian…
…Coe, now chairman of the British Olympic Association, delivered the speech that secured the Games in 2005, in which he promised to “inspire a generation”, regenerate east London and leave a legacy for elite sport.
In the seven years during which the Games were delivered, at an eventual cost of £8.8bn to the public purse, a host of other legacy promises were added to the mix. Some of them, such as a promise to get 1m more people playing sport three or more times a week by 2013, were later dropped. Friday’s report will instead trumpet the 1.4m more people playing sport once a week since the bid was won in 2005.
Coe said he was told to focus on three specific tasks, including a mission to rescue a school sport policy that had become the canvas for a bitter battle not only between the government and Labour but within the Conservative party. “The PM gave me a triage of things to deal with – to get school sport out of critical care, to get as much as we could in the first year for British business and to get the stadium off the agenda and make sure that east London maintained its progress,” said Coe.
He said that his one regret was that the issue of school sport became “tribal”, in contrast to the strong cross-party co‑operation that he said helped deliver the Games. “I’m sorry school sport became tribal, that’s probably the only thing we didn’t deliver in the same spirit as everything else was delivered,” said Coe.
The education secretary, Michael Gove, scrapped £162m in ringfenced funding for a national network of school sport partnerships in December 2010 and was later forced to reinstate half of that money on a limited basis after a furious backlash.
Discussions about a replacement were derailed by a split between the Department of Health, which wanted the money ringfenced for sport, and the Department for Education, which wanted headteachers to be free to spend it on anything.
In March, the government announced that David Cameron had brokered a compromise that would give primary schools £150m to spend on sports-related projects but give headteachers latitude in how it was spent.
Coe insisted the new policy was a good one because it invested the money where it was needed most, but he admitted that at present the provision of sport in primary schools was a “lottery”.
“What I now think we have at last is a grown-up conversation. I don’t think anyone really thinks that the only way to challenge kids is to make it about winning cups, nor should we assume that every sport out there is providing the physiological stimulus.”
Primary school teachers spent too little time learning about the importance of sport and so often lacked confidence in taking PE lessons, said Coe. He said that would be addressed under a new DfE policy that would drastically increase the number of hours devoted to PE in the teacher training curriculum.
“Actually, there are more people playing sport than before the Games, there’s no question about that,” said Coe.
“Too much of the conversation is about inputs and not outputs. It is fundamental. The statistic that should be keeping us awake at night is that between the ages of nine and 15, kids become 50% less physically active,” said Coe. “And if you look at America, 80% of kids are giving up sport at the age of 12. It is really simple. There are only two things to think about: if the first experience of physical activity or sport is a painful one, kids will move on. So it has to be a positive experience. Secondly, it has to be integrated into their [school] day. If you can’t meet those two objectives, you are never going to crack this.”
More at: Lord Coe: I’m quitting to make sure Olympic legacy is delivered
What do you make of Lord Coe’s comments about there being two things that matter: the first experience of sport being positive and it being integrated into the school day? How can this be achieved? What can schools do better and what do they need from the government to make it happen? Please let us know your thoughts…
