What is Sports Development?

Definition of Sports Development
Sports Development is an initiative which aims at promoting the development of sport and recreation activities with specific emphasis on more rural areas, schools, clubs and young people, making sure sport is available and ongoing for all people.

The main aims and objectives of sports development:

• Sport becoming a fundamental part of a community becoming stable, it is proven that getting people who're not involved in sport involved that crime rates in the area's have become reduced, as sport teaches valuable characteristics.
• Increase the knowledge of the younger generation in health and well being, which will benefit them in the future as they will have sufficient knowledge to lead a balanced healthy and active lifestyle.
• Target minority groups and increase there overall participation percentage within sport, through the use of newly developed schemes and sufficient funding.

Priority groups
Increase the number of people taking part in sport from the chosen target groups. Women, they have traditionally never took part in sport as much men, probably due to the fact many sports were male dominated. Young people, it's important to get them into sporting habit when they're young, increases fitness and socialisation skills. Over 50's, because of less good pension schemes people are haven't to work to at an older age, at this point 65, so it's important for them to stay fit so they can efficiently work till they retire. Disabled people, after the Disability Discrimination Act was introduced, there has been increased funding and schemes for disabled people to get involved in sport. Black and minority ethnic groups, there are well known black athletes it sport, but due to poverty, lack of facilities, and poor knowledge about UK sports, ethnic minority groups have a smaller chance of getting involved in sport, so with a larger funding, that can all change.

Funding and government bodies
Due to the importance of people keeping active, and everybody having the chance to get involved, this scheme is highly supported by the goverment, who have control over the distribution of the National Lottery and Exchequer funding.

Sports development continuum

Foundation stage

The bottom level of the continuum known as the foundation stage of the sports development pyramid holds the majority of participants in sport. It includes the young people who’re still in education and are taught PE whom learn and experience various different basic sporting skills as well as people who’re complete beginners to taking part in a sporting activity.

The different activities which are demonstrated at this stage consist of primary school PE lessons, multi-sport sessions, located at sports centres, these both provide attainment of healthy exercise and good skill habits which can then be developed upon and could lead into future participation in a sport of their choice.

Participation stage

This is the stage second from bottom in the hierarchy, and is when participants decide to take part in their chosen activity on a regular basis whether it be because they like the competition, or mainly for the enjoyment. Sports clubs become increasingly important at this stage of the hierarchy as they provide the link to the next stage of development available.

Performance stage

At this stage performers begin to become more interested in the development of their sporting abilities and start to concentrate a lot more on skills specific to their sport so that they can demonstrate and show the advanced skills they have and talent in their sport. Quality coaching is an important part of a performer developing at this level and there are multiple schemes that contribute to this, for example organised plans which could be weekly or weekends including county and regional training.

Excellence stage

This stage provides the optimum of the pyramid and provides exemplary athletes whom demonstrate the levels of skill required to reach sporting excellence. This is the narrowest part of the pyramid as the numbers of athletes will reduce at this stage as there is only a very small percentage who reach sporting excellence. Governing bodies of sport become responsible for the development of performers at this level as they pass from county and regional to national squads.

Three different sports and how the continuum applies

World class performance programme – People who’re podium worthy or podium potential for the Olympics do not receive any funding to do athletics, whereas the 1300 nation’s leading athletes who’re at the podium and podium worthy benefit from an annual investment that totals up around £100 million, ensuring they get the support they need from their NGB’s. This support comes in the form of a performance programme provided by the NGB of the athletes’ sport, which includes coaching, training and competition sport, medical and scientific services and access to the best facilities available within the UK and some in some cases the world. So this is in the excellence section of the Sports Development Continuum. If you’re not at podium or podium worthy, you fit into the three other sections of the continuum, if you compete regionally you’re in the performance section of the continuum, if you’re in a athletics club which you compete locally you’re in the participation section and finally if you’re just taking part in athletics for the enjoyment, learning or any other reasons, you make up the foundation section of the continuum.

South Yorkshire sport school games – In these games, there are four different levels to it. The base of the level is Intra-School Competition, this is for many young people most likely their first experience of sport in the form of a competition between form and PE based activities within the schools. This is part of the foundation section of the sports development continuum as it is the foundation of learning sport for individuals as it’s just PE based activities which are simple skills, these young people may then go on to progress further up the pyramid.

District Level, Inter-School Competition, this is where individuals and teams that have been selected to represent their schools compete against opposing schools from the same district area in a selection of sports and events. This is the participation part of the sports development continuum, they’re slightly more developed skill-wise compared to level 1, but they’re still not at performance level in the continuum.

South Yorkshire Championships, Regional Finals, this is level 3, this is where the winners of level 2 events are then invited to represent their district and compete against other districts at one or two annuals festivals which are held in march and July every year. This is the equivalent to the performance section of the sports development continuum where people are at a higher standard and tend to play sport more regularly.

National Championships, this is where the district champions are then eligible to compete for the national championships in a multi-sport event where only the most talented young people within the country compete. This is the equivalent to the excellence section, where players pass from regional to county squads and NGB’s become responsible for this level.

Leicester Tigers Developing Player Programme (DPP). – This is an availability of progress for children who’re currently in U13 clubs to be able to perform at a higher level, so stepping up from the participation section of the sports development continuum up to the performance section, improving their skills and abilities. If they manage to perform at this higher level of training and begin to adapt, they may be brought through to the competing teams within the league for the age group and start playing professionally.

The WCP is much larger than the other two pathways, but similar in a way to LTDPP, the WCP is competing on an international level and also the LTDPP is capable of competing on an international level through leagues and cups. It's not so similar to SYSSG as the optimum competing point that they have is at national level, where only people within the country compete. Furthermore, the WCP is the only one which is funded by the government, as it's considered a high importance and the other two are not, which means they're funded through other ways, those being Sainsbury's for the SYSSG, allowing them to have their brand name in the games as they created them, and Leicester Tiger's fund the LTDPP as it's a programme created by themselves. Finally, the WCP and LTDPP are similar in the fact that performers can recieve an earning from reaching the top level of performance, through sponsorships and wages for performing, whereas the SYSSG does not pay the children to compete, they're just competiting to be able to represent their schools and gain the title of being the best at what they do.

Priority groups

Disabled people – A barrier for disabled people can be educational, if a disabled person attends a school which doesn't provide them with information on sports and opportunities available for people with disabilities, then they could be at a disadvantage once they leave school and PE is no longer provided regularly as they will struggle to find a sport to participate in as they don't have sufficient knowledge. Participation level can be a barrier for disabled people because this is where sports are in the form of clubs, whereas at foundation this was for skill developing sports, so for people with disabilities which do affect them significantly they will be unable to perform up to standard for these clubs which aren't catered for people with disabilities and they won't be able to enjoy themselves.

To solve this, the school should ensure that disabled people attending their school recieve sufficient knowledge about disabled people in sport, and what is available to them, which would not only bring them comfortability on what they're capable of, but allowing them to also keep physically active and lead a healthy life despite whatever disability may be affecting their life. Furthermore, the government could increase the awareness of the clubs that are available to disabled people, such as wheelchair basketball, as many disabled people do not realise the clubs which are currently out there specifically created to allow them to enjoy some form of sport. The government could do this through the use of advertisement in different forms, such as leaflets and TV adds.

 

Young people – Cost, some young people may live in a relatively worse of family money-wise, and because of the economy they live in, they have a lower budget to spend, which may leave them unable to travel to facilities that are available to them because of travelling costs and furthermore the costs of the session as well. Performance level can be a barrier for young people as this can often in the initial stage be quite costly, for example if an academy wanted a player to come half way across the country to trial because they do have potential talent, but the player wasn’t able to afford the costs, they may miss out on the opportunity to progress to the performance level of the sports development continuum.

To solve this, the government could increase funding to providing facilties and sport for the younger generation in lower-income areas, where there currently isn't enough attention focused to provide them the necessities to do sport. They could do things such as build astro turfs or any other forms of football pitches whether they be concrete or grass, and aswell as this, they could increase the number of schemes which would be specifically designed for lower income children, as they would be free or even cheaper than usual to cater to their wealth.

Women – Barriers for women can be historical stereotypes that suggest women shouldn't play sport, that are still on-going in some countries or areas, they’re becoming less of a commonality in society, but as long as stereotypes remain, there will most likely be less women playing sport. Another barrier can be funding, for example the premier league and NFL receive billions, and there both male only, whereas the women’s football and NFL leagues don’t receive nowhere near as much which means they have less funding for schemes and facilities to try and introduce more women into sport and increase their popularity. Foundation level can be a barrier for women as there are a lot less clubs running for women to participate as there are for males to participate in sport as most sports are male dominated leaving women with less opportunities to get involved.

To solve this, the media could focus more attention than usual to women's sport, by providing more TV time to female sports which would then increase the attention in which they recieve, which would bring a knock on affect such as more publicity and followers, more funding, and finally more women wanting to take part in sport after seeing thenumerous increase of schemes becoming available to them and facilities becoming available to them.