Expect a u-turn over school sport cuts

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There's a lot of nonsense talked about school children and sport. Some say all kids want to do is sit in front of computers and not get outside and play sport.

Others say today's young generation is not as competitive as we were when we were kids.

I coach sport in my spare time and I have to say these ideas are ridiculous. I have seen 10-year-olds playing cricket in the pouring rain and loving it.

Most children are also naturally competitive. In fact the challenge for the coaching I do is to teach them how to focus that energy and edge on tactics during a game and also how to show respect to the opposition when they've won.

I don't think our schools are breeding a generation of uncompetitive kids as some would suggest.

The real difference to my childhood in the 1970s is that children don't go out and play on their own as much as we did as kids.

You don't see many big games of football or cricket on tiny bits of grass which were such an important part of my childhood in the Midlands.

This has a lot to do with parents' worries about traffic and child protection. The other big problem is that headteachers have so many other subjects to put on the timetables that sport often struggles to get a look-in.

So more effort has to be made to get children out of the house and schools need to be persuaded that sport matters.

The first challenge is not a problem in families where parents have the time and money to take their kids to sports clubs.

But it's a major issue in some of Britain's poorer neighbourhoods where parents (sometimes single) are working so hard that they can't take their kids to clubs.

I've spent a lot of time recently looking into the schools issue where the coalition Government is causing a huge controversy by slashing �162m of sports funding in English schools.

We went to film for The Politics Show in schools in Tower Hamlets in east London where there is real frustration that specialist sports coordinators could lose their jobs because of the cuts.

The Cabinet is reported today to be split over the decision by Education Secretary Michael Gove. A massive campaign is growing on twitter and facebook against the cuts.

I'm not surprised. The headteachers I talked to said the sports coordinators had played a crucial role in introducing children to many different sports and getting them active. In Tower Hamlets, many of the kids would not have taken up sport without them.

More importantly, the headteacher of a secondary school said there was more competitive sport in his area than ever before. He said it wasn't true schools need more competitions as the Government suggests .

So the view on the streets of east London is simple: If it ain't broke, why fix it? I also know that senior ministers are very worried about the impact of the cuts and that there isn't complete agreement in the Government on this crucial issue.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a U-turn on this one from the Government in the coming months.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adrianwarner/2010/11/expect_a_u-turn_over_school_sp.html

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