Safer Stronger Communities Fund Programme
Little Hulton Sports and Arts (Project LH4 – part a)
Progress Report 2006/07
March 2007
Project Aim
The Sports and Arts project aims to help keep young people fit, engage them in positive activity and encourage them to be confident and creative in different skills. Not all people are interested in sport therefore as well as sport, providing a choice of arts and crafts may encourage young people to join in with the aim of eventually getting them involved in some sports.
Outputs
The Monday evening activities took place over a 9-week period (29th January - 26th March 2007). The activities were split into 3 sessions: Multi-sports for 9-13 year olds, Arts & Crafts for 9-13 year olds and Multi-sports for 13-16 year olds. The sessions were based at Harrop Fold School, Little Hulton and were free to attend.
The aim of the activities was to offer different sessions (consisting of sports and art) for girls and boys from the Little Hulton area. The idea was to try to attract children and young people who didn’t normally participate in sport. Leaflets advertising the free sessions were distributed to all the schools in the local area.
Performance Indicators
· Young People
The total number of attendances recorded over the 9 weeks was 484. Attendance was recorded at each of the 3 sessions:
· 32% attended sports (9-13 year olds);
· 43% attended the arts & crafts sessions;
· 26% attended sports (13-16 year olds);
The graph below shows the attendance profile over the 9 week programme:
The table below show the number of children and young people who attended the activities over the 9-week period and gives a breakdown by age, gender, ethnicity and disability:
Total No. of attendances / Total No. of Children / No. of Boys / No. of Girls / No. aged under 10 years old / No. of aged 11-13 years / No. of aged 14-16 years / No. of children with a disability / No. of children from an ethnic minority group484 / 135 / 84 / 51 / 53 / 45 / 37 / 1 / 5
*Not all children provided information on age, gender, ethnicity etc, resulting in gaps in information.
· Breakdown of Ethnicity
Ethnic Minority Group / Number of Young PeopleAfrican / 2
White & Black Caribbean / 2
Any other ethnic group / 1
Total / 5
· Gender
The majority of the children and young people attending the activities were boys (62% boys, 38% girls). Most of the children attending the arts & crafts sessions were girls (79%) with only a few boys (21%) attending each session. In the 9-13 year old multi-sport sessions most of the children who attended were boys (64%) and by week 3 there were only boys. In the 13-16 year old multi-sport sessions most of the young people attending were boys (96%).
· Age Breakdown
The activities offered were targeted at two age groups; 9-13 year olds and 13 -16 year olds. The table above shows 39% of the children participating in the activities were aged under 10 years old, 33% were aged 11-13 years old and 27% were aged between 14 and 16 years old (see graph below).
· Disability
Only 1 child said that they had a disability. This figure could potentially be higher as a large majority of the children and young people did not supply information as to whether they had a disability or long term illness.
· Method of Marketing
To measure the success of the different methods used, the children and young people were asked how they heard about the activities (see graph below). 76% received information by a flyer from school, 7% received information via a poster from their school, 6% were told about the activities by their community sport development officer, the remainder of the children were informed either by a flyer in the post (4%), a poster (4%), the Internet (2%), or other (1%). This information needs to be used to inform how future marketing material is distributed.
Overall Impact - Evaluation
The children and young people who attended the sport and art sessions were provided with the opportunity to give their views on the 9-week programme of activities. Feedback was received from 32 children who participated in the sessions:
· All the children who filled in the evaluation questionnaire said they lived in or near Little Hulton (All attending local primary/ high schools);
· 12 (37%) children who filled in the evaluation questionnaires took part in the sport activities. 13 (41%) children took part in the art activities and 7 (22%) children did a mix of both sport & art activities;
· All the children enjoyed the Monday evening sessions;
· 23 (72%) children said that they thought the activities were ‘excellent’. 6 (19%) children thought that they were ‘good’ and 3 (9%) children thought that they were ‘ok’. No negative ratings were received.
The children were asked what they would have been doing on a Monday evening if these activities were not available. The children could tick as many options as they wanted to. As illustrated in the graph below the majority of the past times / activities are ‘sedentary’:
Ø 9 children said they would be playing at home;
Ø 9 children said they would be hanging around the streets;
Ø 1 child said they would be doing homework;
Ø 3 children said they would be attending another club;
Ø 6 children said they would be watching TV;
Ø 1 child said they would be bored;
Ø 3 children said they would be playing on the computer;
Ø 1 child said they would be doing nothing;
Ø 1 child said they would be causing trouble.
Funding:
Amount of SSCF funding approved £6,000;
Amount of SSCF funding spent £6,000.
Future Proposals
The hope is that these future proposals along with the already running programmes can be sustained in both areas for a long time into the future.
The Arts and Crafts project already has one parent volunteer, it is hoped that by continuing the project from September 2007 to March 2008, it will recruit more parents and the group could run with volunteers and support from SCL. The Sports and Arts project will provide a better service by evaluating the best practice from the last project. It will therefore aim to give young people new interests, help them channel their energy into positive activity, the sports will provide a way of letting of steam and the Arts will give those young people with an interest in art/ graffiti a way of using those skills positively.
Lessons Learnt
If the project was to run again, for the Arts and Crafts the number of staff and time would need to be increased. Arts and Crafts are activities which require more time setting up, and packing away as well as one to one tuition with the young people when using glue, paints etc. Due to the high number of young people attending both the sports and arts sessions the staff were spread thinly.
Contact Us
If you require any further information regarding this project please contact:
Danielle Morecroft,
Senior Community Sports Development Officer,
Worsley, Boothstown, Walkden & Little Hulton,
Salford Community Leisure Limited,
Sport, Health & Community Leisure Team,
The Watersports Centre,
15 The Quays,
Salford Quays,
Salford,
M50 3SQ.
Tel: (0161) 873 7538 - Voice & Minicom
Fax: (0161) 876 0898
Mob: 07743593817
E-mail:
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