Tameside College benefits from Sport England award
Thu, 21 September 2017
Tameside College has been awarded £62,000 funding from Sport England to reduce the number of their students who are completing less than thirty minutes of activity each week.
Sport England’s new strategy ‘Towards an Active Nation’ puts tackling inactivity at the heart of what they do. As part of this initiative Sport England is investing £5 million into projects in colleges that will support inactive students into regular activity.
Sport England research found:
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Nearly 1/5 (roughly 138,000) college students in the UK are inactive i.e. do less than 30 minutes of physical activity a week as per England’s Chief Medical Officer’s recommendations. Nearly 2/3 of the inactive group do nothing at all.
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Students who go to college are more inactive than students who go to sixth form or university.
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Being active can make a big difference to everyone’s health: 1 in 6 adults in the UK die as a result of being inactive.
Luke Podmore, sports development officer, said:‘ Tameside College has developed an active culture for 16-19 year olds. It’s been a key part of the college strategy which has not only promoted healthier lifestyles but supported social, personal development. The award will allow us to offer a wider range of activities to meet the diverse needs of our learners. We aim to create lifestyle habits that will improve individual health and wellbeing’.
Around one in five college students in the UK are inactive and many come from groups that have lower socio-economic status or from ethnic groups that are less likely to be active. Colleges in the programme will target these groups specifically to reduce the activity gap between them and their student peers.
Mike Diaper, Executive Director of Community Sport said:
“College is a crucial time in a young person’s development. It is often the first time that activity is not a compulsory part of their study programme and therefore all too many young people become inactive. This funding will allow colleges to be innovative in addressing the needs and desires of their students to help embed activity in their lifestyle in college and for years to come.”