After School Clubs – Get Active for Longer…

With warnings from Ofsted about their being too little strenuous activity in PE lessons, curriculum priorities reducing the time for PE and a lack of physical activity at home, it can be difficult for children to receive the recommended 60 minutes of activity a day and children can easily become less active.

In order to stay active for life and develop a passion for sport and activity, children must progress through the Play, Learn, Compete journey by developing their skills and engaging in physical activity on a regular basis.

After school clubs are a great way to get children active for at least 60 minutes a day and get them engaging with sport and activity whatever stage of the journey they are at.

One of our partners, Active Tameside, work closely with local schools to deliver a range of sports through PE lessons and after school sessions. Dowson Primary School have found that the sessions have brought a number of key benefits to children at their school:

• Children are able to sign up to sports they enjoy.
• Improved confidence in sport.
• Positive relationships with the children.
• Children get to play sports in an environment with less pressure than a normal PE lesson.
• Children who have attended after school clubs show more belief and ability in PE lessons.

After School clubs have also been shown to improve academic performance…

A recent study has found that children who take part in after-school clubs get better results at KS1 and KS2 than those who had not.

Children who attend an after-school club one day per week had an average 1.7 higher KS2 score than predicted. It also shown that children who attended an after-school club two days per week had on average a 3 point higher total score than predicted.

Therefore, after schools club are a great way to ensure that children have access to both the core curriculum and wider enriching activities. It is a great way to get children active for the recommended 60 minutes a day and an important method to improve performance across the curriculum.

Use afterschool clubs for children to learn new sports such as Archery or Tri-Golf or simply to develop key skills such as balance and coordination, using a range of PE Essentials equipment to play and explore.