National Plan for Sport and Recreation - evidence session, March 10

The House of Lords Committee on National Plan for Sport and Recreation today continued its evidence sessions.

The following transcript is based on voice-recognition software. The fully edited transcript will be sent as soon as it is available.

Panel 1 witnesses

• Miss Alison Oliver, CEO at Youth Sport Trust
• Sue Wilkinson MBE, CEO at Association for Physical Education
• Dr Liz Durden-Myers, Senior Lecturer in Physical Education at Bath Spa University, and Senior Lecturer in Physical Education at University of Gloucestershire

Lord Willis of Knaresborough [00:01:58] We're really concerned as a committee about the current state of PE in our schools in England. And we're interested too that, given the 2019 school sport and activity plan, which includes the activity in schools, I want to know whether that's being implemented properly. And we want to know what you think about the state of PE in England. And in particular, how do each of you think it can be improved?

Dr Liz Durden-Myers [00:02:35] That's a really, really interesting question, and there are it's a real mixed landscape out there. There are some excellent examples of high quality in school sport provision up and down the country. But there's also a bit of a mixed landscape in relation to how we can improve the current provision across the country. So we've got a number of challenges and a range of areas. So I'm just going to pick out one or two from the spectrum. So within higher education, physical education, undergraduate programmes are becoming increasingly academic, which means that they are really all graduates are really proficient in sports sciences. But we're losing the practical application of that and the pedagogic practise. So we need to ensure that within higher education, we are embedding practice and theory so that we can take this theory and enhance practise within the I.T. landscape. So the initial teacher training landscape as well, it's really welcomed that we've got new routes into teaching through schools, direct and PGCE and assessment only. However, all of these routes into teaching need to be followed up with lifelong professional learning or career-long professional learning that's really rich and enables of new teachers and established teachers to respond to the challenges and the changing challenges that they're facing with an education within the primary sector, within higher education. We're also still facing challenges around the limited provision of training, and we're sending primary people, primary generalists into the teaching profession with as little as six hours of training in physical education, which is it's not surprising then that they come back saying they don't feel confident or competent to deliver physical education within the secondary space. We're seeing PE disappearing off the curriculum and it is redirected to other academic subjects, which is very worrying, especially at the key stage four level. And there's growing focus on examination and we're losing our core physical education identity. And then in the primary space, we're seeing a lot of outsourcing, physical education, curriculum, time coaching companies, a narrowing of the curriculum, and we're losing that diverse range of opportunities for all children to experience a range of activities primarily be rooted in enjoying being active. So across the spectrum, we've got challenges every single level, and a lot of that is underpinned with a lack of status of value of physical education at the senior leadership level. And it's not necessarily the senior leaders fault because we're not providing a clear strategy for what physical education schools should look like. And so we would say that we would like physical literacy to be the centre of physical education and provide clearer guidance and local networks to support senior leaders and generalists and PE specialists deliver high-quality physical education offer.

Lord Willis of Knaresborough [00:05:33] OK, so if I went to your institution, would that be the message which you were giving to your undergrads as they're going through education programmes? Because I don't sense that is the case across the country.

Dr Liz Durden-Myers [00:05:50] Yeah, unfortunately, I can only speak from my own experience within my own institutions, but we are saying that there is a very challenging landscape out there. We are a marginalised subject. We often are at the bottom of the priority list.

Lord Willis of Knaresborough [00:06:08] What can we do then to us? What does this committee do to actually make a difference to them as we have the government?

Dr Liz Durden-Myers [00:06:19] We would like Ofsted... Because unfortunately, in order for anything within physical education general to have value, often it's associated with what Ofsted assess. So we would like Ofsted to hold senior leaders accountable for the health and well-being, physical education, school sport. And at the senior leadership level, we know that individual PE teachers and heads of department are trying to champion it from the bottom up. But we do need a top-down approach as our whole school approaches to really value health and well-being and physical education. And we're seeing that within the new national curriculum for Wales and they're approaching it a lot better than we currently are in embracing health and wellbeing as an area of the learning experience and overarching aim of the education offer.

Lord Willis of Knaresborough [00:07:45] Sue, can you tell us what can we do to actually improve not only the status but the quality of what is actually going on for physical education in our schools?

Sue Wilkinson [00:07:55] Thank you. I do totally agree with everything Liz said, but we must also recognise excellent practice. And it was Edward Timpson who said if one school can do it, every school should be able to do it. And I think the issue is a lot of schools are not really grasping what physical education is and see to sport. And it isn't. Where we've seen excellent physical education, it is monitored by senior leaders. And with the new inspection framework, they're actually looking at systemic improvement, but they do not inspect specific subjects. Now, as Liz said, if something is inspected, it's obviously valued more by some colleagues. So if we could look at some kind of regulation and to look at how well physical education is taught and not just sport, because we have a physical education curriculum, not a sports curriculum, because where it is well in physical education is taught well. It emanates then into a good school sports programme, which then has a seamless transition into community activity. So our young people, where they're getting a good experience, are actually physically, emotionally, socially and cognitively well. And where it isn't happening, they are clearly disadvantaged. So if it's off, if it's a different other body that regulates to see that we do have high quality, not only in physical education but in the school setting as well, that will make an awful difference in a positive way. Ofsted, I'm not sure if they can do that now with a new inspection framework. We love it. It's great, it's broad and it's balanced. But on a one-day inspection, when would they have the time to do that? Another, as well as Liz was also said about the status. We do need to work with teachers. And if you could influence the government to actually advocate with teachers that physical education, where it's at the heart of a curriculum, has a phenomenal impact on children and young people's wellbeing.

Alison Oliver [00:10:11] Just to underline what Liz said, it was the DfE's workforce survey that reported fifty-three thousand hours of physical education has been lost in our schools in the last 10 years. So this is a very real issue. And it's the first question. How do you describe the state of physical education? Well, it's sadly in decline right at the time when I think we probably all believe its contribution could be hugely significant to the issues facing young people from a well-being perspective, but also the growing evidence-based around the impact of physical activity, physical development and cognitive performance and cognitive development. And I think that they are realising one of the issues around its status and value in education is that it's seen as one of a number of subjects rather than the fundamental foundation that it lays for learning across every subject we know now more than ever as children return after the lockdown and that the interruptions of physical education is one of the subjects that can use to rebuild connectedness, self-confidence, self-esteem, a sense belonging, teamwork, all of those things that are good learning in the classroom and any subject is built on. So I think we've always known that physical education has had a social purpose throughout history, whether it was kind of more of the therapeutic focus in the eighteen hundreds or a century of focus on preparing men for war and military fitness being very much part of schools and combat, it feels right now where we're on the verge of a brilliant moment, physical education, where it could be repositioned in a way that delivers on well-being, personal development, character, all the things that we know as a nation we're going to need from this generation because we move out of the digital age and much more into this human age where what we can do as individuals and how we relate to each other is so important. So I think I agree with Liz on teacher training. I agree with Sue on accountability for the subject. All these things drive importance philosophically, a restating of the intention of physical education. Why it's on the curriculum in our school and what we intend it to deliver for young people would be incredibly powerful at this moment, supported then by a great teacher training programme to refresh the profession and the orientation of initial teacher training for those who are coming into the profession.

Baroness Morris [00:12:58] I just wanted to challenge a bit, to be sort of a devil's advocate. I know what you say, Sue, about Ofsted and I understand the consequences of it not being high on their priorities, but I feel it was almost a failure if that was the lever we used sort of that threat of Ofsted rather than winning hearts and minds. And Alison, you finished off by saying - and there was an agreement amongst all three of you really - that perhaps there's not that understanding of the new role of P.E. and sports in the curriculum. So I don't think Sue, you said health and wellbeing, and you talked about physical literacy... In my teaching days, we never talked about physical literacy. What I'm challenging you on is calling on Ofsted to be the lever that gets us where we want to be. I'm really nervous about that. And I've been really nervous about that being a recommendation in our report because it doesn't always happen. It's not happened in the past. And I'm not sure it helps you win hearts and minds. So could you just perhaps briefly say, you know, do you really think that that was the best recommendation you'd ask us to make, get it inspected by Ofsted? Or can't we do the more difficult task of explaining to school leaders and holding them to account in other ways so that they really understand the change in curriculum that's happened over the last couple of decades as far as this area is concerned?

Sue Wilkinson [00:14:33] Yes, thank you. You're absolutely right. It shouldn't be the lever. And we do have to win hearts and minds. So there's a combination for me. I know, having been Ofsted inspector, that when you go in and it's outstanding, what is the first thing a headteacher buys - that huge, great sign that says St Cuthbert's is an outstanding school. So it does matter to heads. It really does. So I think the endorsement of high quality shouldn't be the carrot and stick and the punishment, but I do think senior leaders understand when that judgement is made that really elevates the school. But also when it disappeared, it was the profession who came to us as an association and said, how can I celebrate my subject now without any external verification of how good we are? And I think that's really important. I also think Baroness you are spot on to say hearts and minds have got to be changed within. I think it was Liz who said earlier, this is a multifaceted question here, and we really do have to concentrate on getting it at the heart of the curriculum and explaining why and being articulate. The problem is, as you said, you know, I trained at Bedford where it wasn't called physical literacy then it was called human movement studies. But it was quite clear it was about planned progressive learning and becoming competent to learn, to move and move, to learn. And that's sort of been lost a bit to sport and that confusion. So I think you're absolutely right. We need to change. Hearts and minds have a clear definition of the difference between and how they could be linked between sport and physical activity, but also get it there on the agenda of everyone that this is a great subject. And if that's part of central or an independent role, I would love schools to phone Ofsted and say come and have a look at our PE because it's wonderful.

Dr Liz Durden-Myers [00:16:38] Yeah, I agree with everything Sue said, but also to raise and build upon Ali's point around needing something to unite the profession. And that's how we see physical literacy moving and the core principles that bind a profession together. And by us using physical literacy, we can all adopt the same common values and be process-driven around providing a holistic approach, inclusive, person-centric experiences and a range of opportunities to respond to the growing needs of our young people and the diverse needs of our young people. So we're calling for physical literacy as that uniting movement for all of us to get behind and win those hearts and minds and have a common language about how do we promote physical activity in schools both within and beyond education.

Alison Oliver [00:17:31] I would like to add one very brief comment. I'm very conscious as a former teacher and we're very lucky to have physical education in the curriculum at all stages. But young people can come out of 11 years of physical education with nothing tangible to demonstrate what they've learnt. And I think this does link a little bit into the Ofsted point. Because it isn't assessed, benchmarked or tracked in any way, it's very difficult to therefore assess its broader impact on educational outcomes and indeed to demonstrate its value to parents and carers and others who sometimes play a role in whether the subject. So we've been calling at the Youth Sport Trust for national well-being measure, which isn't necessarily a testing physical education per se, but it's something that physical education could very helpfully contribute to. And that well-being measure is used in other countries to helpfully target resources and improve both education and physical, emotional and social health.

Earl of Devon [00:18:51] If I may pick you up on your comments around what children end up with at the end of their school time and focus in particular on what schools can do. But what can schools be doing more of or differently to instil a lifelong love of sport and recreation amongst their students?

Alison Oliver [00:19:13] I think in some ways the answer may lie in the question. If one of the intentions of physical education was to develop a lifelong love of sport and movement of young people that would fundamentally affect the curriculum, the activities that we deliver in the pedagogy. So I think it comes back again to what's the core ambition or purpose of the subjects. But beyond that, I would absolutely align with Liz and Sue as well on physical literacy, the best chance we have of helping young people fall in love with moving is to make it feel nice and feel good. And that relies on developing confidence in young age, harnessing a broad range of activities as possible in the curriculum. Too often PE is quite narrow for children, can be dominated by team sports and more traditional sports. Yet there's this amazing array of activities that we can use as the vehicle through which to deliver physical education. And then finally, our work often demonstrates that developing young people as leaders and embracing young people's voices can be a huge driver for positive engagement in physical education in schools sport and subsequently support a lifelong habit of being active. So where we have in our Girls Active programme, for example, which is all about getting more teenage girls engaged in sport and enjoying the sport, it's all predicated on working with those young girls that are least active to hear their voice, listen to what they would like to do, what they would find enjoyable, and then create the curriculum with them and in many cases develop them as leaders organise and deliver elements of the lesson and elements of after school sport. So I think I would highlight those reasons.

Earl of Devon [00:21:12] Sue, If I could turn to you and maybe a particular focus on how we get children that are playing sport at school to continue to be playing school sport after school.

Sue Wilkinson [00:21:21] Yes, thank you. We would really like a seamless transition here. One of the statutory aims of the national curriculum that's been there since 2014 is to lead active lifestyles. And I think we've probably not delivered on that if we're really honest. And I would like to see more implementation of those aims because it's they've got a wonderful curriculum where it seems to fall down is going into the implementation phase. And at least as alluded to earlier, more professional development support for teachers to see how they can embed that lifelong love of learning. We did have some challenges when it was first put into the curriculum because we said, how can we monitor that? So it's embedding the love of it and also getting those young people confident enough to talk to their parents about, I really want to do this. I really want to whether it's in the park on their skateboard or skipping or whether it's actually in a formalised club locally, I want to be more physically active and more involved in sport. So with implement implementation stage, that actually needs more emphasis when they are teaching physical education and knowing why we are really doing this. You know, there are all sorts of reasons and these need to be explained to children and young people.

Dr Liz Durden-Myers [00:22:38] I would just add that we need to stop blending or blurring the lines between physical education, school sport has done within school and transition into the community. And so we need to bring community sport into school and we need to bring schools into the community. So we need to connect the local offer and create responsive curriculums that also utilise what's available within the local community. So really thinking about not just physical education as an isolated curriculum, but how we can use that to empower individuals and devolve responsibility to them to become physically active in their own environment and local communities.

Earl of Devon [00:23:22] And should that be for the school to do or for the local community to do? Who drives that interaction?

Dr Liz Durden-Myers [00:23:31] It needs to be a partnership. It needs to be driven from both sides. And that's the only way that's going to be successful. But if we want people to be active throughout life, we have to get them to start engaging in activities throughout a wider range of venues of activities and also utilise the opportunities that are on our doorstep.

Lord Snape [00:24:01] As the father of two girls and a stepfather two others, what unites them all was a mutual dislike of organised sports at school, particularly once they got into their teens. Is this still the attitude these days? And how do we combat it to ensure that not only do they enjoy sport more at school, but they continue in later life to enjoy sport and recreation?

Alison Oliver [00:24:33] Well, sadly, that is often a story we hear and we know from Sport England data that there is a stubborn gap between girls and boys that despite many efforts over many years, we haven't managed to narrow very much. I think my answer would be No. One, it's probably not organised sport as a whole. It will be what they've experienced as organised sport. And if that was one or two games, perhaps that they didn't find enjoyable then that might well put off. And that's why both Liz and I just talk about the breadth of the curriculum, and engaging young people in many different sports as possible as a young age, in school sport and in through physical education, developing that confidence and competence and movement's ability to be able to turn their hand to lots of sports. It's very, very important. Secondly, interestingly, we're seeing a huge boom at the moment in girls' football and girls' rugby. And as a former teacher, I know I can say this now - I've had counselling - I taught netball for seven years to the same girls. It's no wonder that I put a huge number off because if they didn't like it in year seven, they certainly weren't going to like it by year 11. So I think often that reflection we get, the teenage girls don't like organised sports is more likely to be they don't like one or two sports or they don't like the way in which it was taught and delivered.

Lord Hayward [00:26:22] Could Liz write to the committee citing examples of where community sport in schools worked because that's just the sort of thing we're looking at.

Earl of Devon [00:27:04] What should the government's post covid-19 focus be to help children and young people get active again, given the terrible drop off in physical activity during the last year?

Dr Liz Durden-Myers [00:27:16] We concur that one of three hasn't left the house, so we know that physical activity levels have dramatically declined, which means that their motivation, confidence and physical competence to be physically active will also have had a detrimental effect. So we would like physical education, school sport to be placed at the heart of education anyway, but especially at this time to harness the power of school sport, to bring people back together, to reconnect with one another and address social anxieties, respond to the inequalities that have been highlighted as a result of covid-19 use physical education in schools as a medium to just enjoy being active and being active together and address health and well-being. But this won't happen unless we elevate the value of school sport, recognise the importance of health and well-being, and respond to the current worrying narratives around catching up, which will actually just incur further anxieties. So that's what we would like to do, is use PE in school sports as a vehicle through which we can start reconnecting with one another in an enjoyable, meaningful environment.

Earl of Devon [00:28:29] Ali, maybe you could answer the same question, but particularly if you have any thoughts on on specific funding that could be directed at this stage or whether it should be to the school sports.

Alison Oliver [00:28:41] The committee may or may not know that there is currently a national network of school games organisers. Four hundred and fifty organisers funded through Sport England lottery investment and the DoH. And their role is to increase the number of young people taking part in competitive sport in the maintained sector and make that experience more inclusive of more young people. And we think it would be really obvious those posts of three days a week at the moment. Last year, they collectively delivered two point two million competitive school opportunities for young people, 10 per cent of whom had special educational needs and disabilities. That's a big theme of the school games. To be inclusive is a simple top of the network for the summer term, or indeed longer, depending on how long we feel we need to turbocharge the experiences of young people. But that network of fundamental right now, when teachers have a very stretched with all of the other expectations upon them, and if we want to see more sports, we need somebody who's going to coordinate it, organise it, planet, get the officials if there's going to be competition and corrective things to do. So that would be a very simple thing and do so. I would encourage the government right now to make clear its intentions around the future of the primary for premium investments and the long term future of the school games, both of which, if there was no confirmation forthcoming very soon, schools would clearly not have plans in place for September and may well start to taper off their provisions. If we want young people to come back and come back strong now in sport, now is the time to up the capacity both in schools and as Liz said in the school games organisers do work at that interface between school and community sport.

[00:30:39] Sue, do you have any further comments, maybe particularly over accessibility to playing fields and such over the summer?

Sue Wilkinson [00:30:47] Oh, absolutely, and, you know, we would support that. We're very pleased with the half and everything that's going on about accessing Youth Sport Trust sports facilities within school because there are so many available.

I'd like to do is sort of just revisit what Baroness Morris said about hearts, minds. PE is the bedrock. And if that's not enjoyable, then young children and young people will not access school sport or physical activity. They will just do what they have to do in school. So we would also encourage you to perhaps work with government to ask schools to have a broader, more balanced curriculum. We've worked with Sport England, particularly in the secondary market, as has Ali on the secondary teacher training programme to help schools broaden their curriculum so their activities there that particularly young women want to engage with. And also studio view, which is about to be launched, is a phenomenal resource to help people engage children and young people in different activities, which we hope then will spill over into the community and get that seamless transition. But I would urge first that physical education needs to be right in the school if young people are going to access things in the summer and do extra activities and sport because they as Lisa said, they've been at home, one in three have not been out. And we're getting feedback already that children are quite unfit. They are out of breath, but they are enjoying the social setting. And that is just, you know, three or four days. So the appetite is there for the young people, but they must enjoy it and they must really get that fundamental PE right in school if they're going to continue forward. And it's the long term planning as Ali said. So schools know whether or not they have a budget in primary and secondary for PE.

Baroness Morris [00:02:02] We were interested in your views on the impact and effectiveness of the PE and sport premium on. One thing we're particularly interested in is who's teaching it because, you know, different words have been used like coaches or outsourcing or whatever. And I wondered if you knew had any detail about that. Could you could still be a coach and a trained teacher just because you're not on you know, on the staff role of the school doesn't mean you've not got to teach qualification. So in your responses, could you just comment a little bit on who's actually doing the work? But on the whole, the question is one about your views on the effectiveness of the premium list. You want to start on this one, Liz?

Dr Liz Durden-Myers [00:02:41] Yeah, again, this is a really diverse picture. And there are schools up and down the country that are really utilised. The sports premium funding really well, increasing that provision, especially with things like swimming, which is normally a really expensive activity, but really vital activity to include within the curriculum and also our rural schools using it for transportation because again, that's very, very expensive to transportation, to competitions and so on. However, there have also been reports of widespread misuse of the PE sports premium funding where it hasn't been ring-fenced for its intended purposes. It hasn't been used sustainably and it's been used as PPA Labour through the back door, which is a massive concern for us. There's also a lack of regulation for who this curriculum is being outsourced to. And so the coaching companies are springing up left, right and centre, and there is no unassertive quality control over the nature of the individuals going on to teach these young children. This is our major concern now. We've spent three years of undergraduate level and then a teacher training as four years minimum in order to get to the coalface as a qualified teacher. Yet you could perform a MGP level one in coaching in one sport and potentially be at the interface and coalface of teaching students. So I think that there's a regulation issue here, a child protection and safeguarding issue potentially. But having said that, there are some fantastic coaching companies out there. And the main thing is that we have inspirational people at the interface and working with children because just because you're a qualified teacher doesn't necessarily mean that you were the right person to be at that interface. But if you're not confident or competent as a qualified teacher, that's the issue we should be trying to address. And we'd like to see more blended approaches where the curriculum is primarily delivered by qualified teachers that is enriched and enhanced by specialist coaches. And what we're seeing at the moment is the Reverso predominantly and within the primary sector, it's being outsourced coaching companies, which leads to a narrowing because they're not specialists in a range of curriculum, in the range of curriculum activities. And also we're losing the pedagogic centre of. You know, placing children at the heart of it and the relationships, if you just see that one coach for one hour a week, you have got a holistic view put on that child. And it would never happen in any other subject where it's outsourced, they say, well, let's say would never, ever happen. And it just sends a massive message around the value of PE if we can get a coach to come in and deliver it. And it's not necessarily something that a qualified generalist teacher should be attending to. So me personally, I would love to see a return to predominately qualified teachers teaching physical education enhanced enriched by coaching companies and specialists.

Sue Wilkinson [00:05:45] You'll recall that we used to have coaching for teachers where we used to have the upscaling in the technical term, which was a great role for NGOs and coaches. So there was that sort of partnership. Totally concur. I won't repeat everything you said because we believe facts and physical education, teachers or teachers and physical education should be at the heart to get some kind of transformational change in school. And we it's the lack of sustainability. The whole purpose was that it was Ring-fence to be used in school. So that was sustainable. Infrastructure would actually evolve. And because, as we said, there isn't any regulation. We do not have PE advisors anymore. You know, pedagogies who understood what was high quality PE then we haven't got anybody being accountable for taking account of where that spend is gone. And it's important that it remains ring-fenced because we need that investment. But also as Liz said, there are some excellent providers out there who have engaged former teachers and also Coach Bob as a coach, long as you know, before I became a teacher. So the two go very well together, but it is where it's inappropriate. Um, you know, our association has a very big role in health and safety that is key to keep our young people safe. And that means, sure, that they're taught by appropriately qualified people. So it has been extremely effective in part and not so effective where it's not delivered by appropriately qualified people. And again, that's the sort of lack of accountability now it's no longer in Ofsted's brief.

Alison Oliver [00:07:34] You asked the question about how do we rate the effectiveness and impact of the premium? I think the simple answer is it's very difficult to evaluate that because there have been no national outcomes established and tracked and measured. So it is very difficult for anyone actually to say other than as an individual school level, whether it's made any difference or not. And I think therein lies one of the challenges. I think up until now it's about one point eight billion pounds have been spent on the primary fiscal premium, which is a phenomenal one estimate, but surely should come with some expectation of clear outcomes that we can measure. And then I would just like to add to the end of this conversation, even where it has had a fantastic impact, where we've seen primary schools use it really well to build capacity to implement curriculum, raise the profile of the subject. What happens is students will leave those primary schools transition into secondary. And as I mentioned earlier, 38 per cent of secondary schools in our network at least have cut time on the curriculum PE in the last 10 years. So there is an issue about this imbalance of do we really want to give young people a phenomenal primary experience if we can, but then for them to experience in secondary subjects has very low value, low status and a narrow focus. So I think the overall effectiveness of it will be known in time when we see where some of these young people end up post-secondary education as well.

Baroness Morris [00:09:07] And if I just have one brief follow up question, perhaps Ali could be the one that responds to. When you talk about it not being linked to the school and not working with the teachers and the outsourcing. In your head, the answer to that. It's almost like reinventing those old school partnerships when I'm going back 20 years because I worry really that we're reinventing the wheel. So without going into a lot of detail of Youth Sport Trust was very instrumental in making that work. Is it worth looking at some of the models that have been used in the past? Because they might have been an answer and that frankly got dropped?

Alison Oliver [00:09:46] We absolutely favour one of the things we don't do very well in this country. We learn what we get right and keep it going. We often move away from going really well in favour of something. I think what we would say is there were some weaknesses in the school sport model. And investing in schools has given, for some teachers greater ownership, accountability and authority over what happens rather than receiving top-down. But without doubt, the issues around outsourcing come down to sometimes ill-informed consumers, which is, again, no fault of this leader or that person who is investing that money. But if they don't understand the difference between coach and teacher and have no understanding about what it looks like when that money is invested. Well, so whether it was former PE advisers and local authorities or then schools for partnerships, we would absolutely advocate having a team of local experts at a local level who could not only advise but can coordinate and plan some of the things that the organise a network you now and as Liz said, be that role between school and community make that there's a managed transition.

Lord Willis of Knaresborough [00:11:08] I must confess, I find it surprising...when I was the head, if I was employing a maths teacher, I would have a set of criteria on which I would actually appoint somebody. If in fact as I did yesterday, once a diploma, I went to check a trade and I got a set of criteria to actually deliver it. Yeah, we somehow got an ability to be able to bring people in with a set of criteria to make sure they fit the needs that we have. I just don't understand that. But I'll leave that in there. And I promised I wouldn't do that. And I'm going to move on to Lord Moynihan.

Lord Moynihan [00:11:47] Thank you, Chair. And I'd just like to focus for a moment on this relationship between local communities and schools or other local clubs and schools. You might start by saying, obviously, we recognise the distinction between PE and sport and Liz, I totally echo what you say about the importance of improving PE teaching the specialist, because if we can solve it within the schools, we just do not need to continue doing outreach and get everybody else involved, many of whom are unqualified and against that background and focussing on the importance, therefore making that the priority there is nevertheless, especially with sport, the opportunity for greater links with sports clubs in the community. And for all the good work the Youth Sport Trust do with four hundred and fifty school organisers, that's not even one per constituency. And yet if you go into a constituency, the football clubs and the clubs for all sorts of different activities. Thirty-five years ago this was high on the agenda when I was a minister. I don't think it's changed at all in the 35 years since then. In fact, if anything, it's worse, but I hope you're going to persuade me otherwise. Should it not be the case that there is a much stronger emphasis on linking those who are keen on sport? And I'm not talking about the curriculum for PE at the moment, but on sport and want to get fit and tackle obesity and enjoy sport to link with clubs and shouldn't be specific government measures to overcome issues such as clubs coming into schools, insurance costs of lighting up facilities after hours. And there should be, should they not be a concerted effort to address this question as supplementary to attacking the most important thing, which is the deficiencies in the PE teaching and the PE specialists and the funding that's necessary in order to really improve that.

Dr Liz Durden-Myers [00:13:44] So I would argue that this is a really, really important agenda and we need to just make sure, though, that we have high-quality experiences across the board. So whether that's in school or out in Labour community, we know that there are issues as well in terms of participation rates in local communities, sport. And so using school facilities as the centre where physical activity may happen or school club links can happen, will potentially increase participation numbers. But potentially as well, we need to redefine what we mean by sport club links. We would like to move away from sport and be more physical activity as a basis so that we can engage with a wider range of providers. But we need to make sure that anyone coming into contact with our children, we don't inadvertently promote opportunities for early specialisation and use these. We would like them to be multisport activities, especially low-down down the school. And we'd also like to ensure that participation versus performance is balanced because we know that often we're using grassroots sports as Ali performance pathways. So we need to make sure that there's no really specialisation. Its multi-sport is fundamentally around enjoyment and a high-quality experience. And we stave off routes for competition until later in life. When I say competition, I mean elite performance.

Lord Moynihan [00:15:09] Absolutely. Okay, thank you very much indeed. Sue, hearing what you've just heard, would you agree with that, bearing in mind as well that one of the big challenges that we haven't really focussed on at the moment is the importance of making the enjoyment, the experience of PE and sport inclusive for girls. And for all too long, this hasn't necessarily been the case, and then the traditional competitive sports are not necessarily high on the agenda of the interests of a lot of girls. Do you think that there should be greater engagement, just not just with sports clubs, but across the board with activities in the community involved? In other words, far more engagement between the community and the schools, parents becoming more involved, more out of hours, use of school facilities and vice versa. And do you think that is a critical pathway to addressing obesity, inactivity and the challenges of boredom, for example, that exists amongst many young people today?

Sue Wilkinson [00:16:12] Absolutely, Lord Moynihan. I couldn't agree more. I was very privileged when I was a lecturer to work over in Gothenburg. And the Swedish model is very good where there isn't any early specialisation and there is that link from school to community. But also it's not just the traditional sports. I'm very involved with our local cricket club, which isn't just cricket, it's cricket, tennis and football. And it is open to all young people and it encourages girls to be active in these areas. But then you've also got those who prefer to do Pilates and yoga and opening school sites for that will keep costs down and make it more accessible and sort of if local communities can get more involved in one of our board members. Kievan body has just tried to engage Muslim women in cricket, and it's been really hard for her to do that. But she has succeeded without having any funding and a lot of motivation. And I think the local picture has to be looked at because there isn't a silver bullet. One size will not fit all. And I think we do have to look at how we are inclusive right across the country. And that may be traditional sports clubs. It may be opening up school facilities to have very different activities that will engage everybody, as well as having a seamless transition from school into clubs.

Lord Moynihan [00:17:36] And Ali, the concern in the early days with about Youth Sport Trust is that they were either duplicating or overlapping with the governing bodies of sport, which were very active in this field, some which exists exclusively to look after schoolchildren and put on competitions, et cetera. Do you think even greater cooperation between the work that you're doing, the bridges between the schools and the and the clubs can see a greater role for the local governing bodies, not the governing bodies, but the clubs that are affiliated to the governing bodies, as well as the governing bodies in the sector.

Alison Oliver [00:18:16] Yes, I think without kind of welling on the past Lord Moynihan, we are now working really, really closely with governing bodies and the school is an excellent model where the national governing bodies own the competition format. They've worked with us to develop age and stage appropriate formats. And they've also developed alternative formats which are urban or extreme or just slightly modified versions to appeal to a broad audience. And what we've done and I want to be really clear, that the Youth Sport Trust doesn't employ the skill organisers that directly funded by Sport England this the health and social care, but they're employed in schools, by schools, and then they work across a number of schools, very similar to the former schools for partnerships. But, well, our job is to do is to work with the governing bodies, to support them, developing age and stage appropriate content. And then we work with the school games, organise a network to support them to run local competition in partnership with those local NGV clubs. But I would want to just echo one thing here that's just been talked about by both Liz and soon is opening up school sites. We know Sport England states that 40 per cent of all our facilities, state sports facilities, that is on school sites, which is seventy-seven per cent of sports halls and sixty-one per cent of artificial pitches to creating schools as multi-sport hubs in the community, which offer an extended school day or active wraparound care, will allow us to reach those young people for whom no clubs or zoos mentioned. Other providers are just out of reach, either geographically or financially. It will also make better use of the state that we have, and it will drive closer links between schools and clubs, particularly where those junior clubs on the school site can be, satellites of other clubs in the community. And then we can really get what Liz is calling for - that multi-sport experience delivered by coaches who specialise in working with children and young people. But those junior clubs are intrinsically linked and have a clear pathway to the local community club as children grow.

Lord Moynihan [00:20:37] Thank you. Much. One tiny question. I would call quite a major debate at the beginning of the school games about whether or not they were open to independent schools, Are they open to independent schools now?

Alison Oliver [00:20:48] Yes, they are. Absolutely, yes. They have been open to independent schools. Lord Moynihan what tends to happen is some of the bigger independent schools will engage in the school games for sports they don't traditionally engage in or for sometimes lower teams if they're high, high, highly successful independent schools. So they'll have teams in various different competitions in the school games will be one of them.

Lord Addington [00:21:24] Are local sports clubs actually good deliverers of sport outside their own expertise or are they examples of it? Because there tends to be a sort of thing about we must recruit, we must get people involved, which is another way of turning people off because they get involved in something which isn't for them. But they might actually say, OK, can you go on to something else? I just wondered if you had examples where that has worked or hasn't worked.

Dr Liz Durden-Myers [00:22:03] I've worked with small whales who have been working with Welsh national governing bodies on exactly that front. Sports clubs can be quite protective over the numbers. And this is potentially a barrier to that multisport approach. However, there are initiatives that we can run. So, for example, we have just run a racquet sports summer camp over the summer in Wales, bringing record sports together so that when we need to think about how we capture numbers and participation differently, so that if they lose if you lose a participant from squash, but they re-enter badminton, that shouldn't be a net loss. It should just be an exit route into something else. So if we can redefine how we measure participation and encourage closer collaboration, there's actually a big crossover between badminton and construction and tennis and so on. And actually, often you don't lose them. You just listen to another sport. But that shouldn't be counted as a loss. It should only be counted as a loss if they just engage in physical activity altogether. So, yeah, definitely bring sports together and trying to get them to be more collaborative is something that definitely needs being addressed.

Baroness Sater [00:23:37] Could I just firstly declare an interest that I am a co-chair of a new newly formed APPG on sport and physical activity in the criminal justice system? And can I just follow and say that you've given us some very good insight into many issues that we've asked you today. And it's been really interesting to hear your expert views and ideas on a whole range of subjects. And you've also given us some recommendations to go and think about. But we also would like to hear from you, your top two priorities, your top two recommendations that this committee could take away today to take to government. What would those two top priorities be? And maybe I'd start with Liz.

Dr Liz Durden-Myers [00:24:28] So I would like us to see physical literacy as something for us to unite both school sport and school sport and community sport that articulates the common values that we each can get behind. So it would be in a holistic approach that values inclusive and person-centric environments and a range of opportunities and physical literacy being the core message around our early encounters around physical activity and promoting physical activity for life. Secondly, I think that we need to continue in order to make good on those claims is to improve the quality and the provision of PE in school, sport and potentially sport like this book club provision as well. By providing lifelong professional learning opportunities, local life support networks, and helping transition between education and community sport and physical activity.

Alison Oliver [00:25:22] So I would like us to sort of invest to ensure that we have a world-class profession to deliver high-quality education and skills, sport and physical activity so it improves the status of PE in schools, that we secondly have some kind of regulatory framework that ensures we are more accountable investment into sport and physical activity and the impact it's having on raising standards in school.

Baroness Sater [00:25:56] I just go back to just a quick question on the regulatory framework, could you just expand on that a little? Just a little bit?

Sue Wilkinson [00:26:05] Yes. It's some kind of framework that ensures schools are accountable to deliver high-quality physical education. And I don't want to use Ofsted because Baroness Morris is absolutely right. It shouldn't be the tail that wags the dog. It needs to be a framework to ensure what's on offer in PE and school and physical activity is regulated to ensure we get more bang for our buck. But what difference if there is evidence of impacts on children's physical, emotional, social and cognitive wellbeing.

Alison Oliver [00:26:45] My two things would be I would love this enquiry to lead to a recommendation that government establish a long term cross-departmental strategy to make our children the happiest and healthiest in the world. So I think that would bring with it a courageous and bold ambition around well-being and a measure of well-being. Secondly, I will go back to Baroness Morris asked me earlier and say we are the Youth Sport Trust know from our experience of 25 years. To deliver a national strategy to twenty-four and a half thousand schools, we have to have a local network of experts who can both drive that strategy onto the ground, but support schools and build capacity in schools so that the strategy is sustainable in the long run.

Lord Willis of Knaresborough [00:27:37] Who should be that expert?

Alison Oliver [00:27:44] I think there should be someone with expertise in physical education, someone akin to the school games organiser who can organise, manage and deliver school sports, but also some expertise that we see sitting, for example, in the active partnerships at the moment, opening up school sites and helping small business managers know how to make that possible as well so that we unlock the estate.

Baroness Sater [00:28:11] Ali, you mentioned measures being delivered, wellbeing measures being delivered, the countries. Would it be possible to let us know what information you're referring to is perhaps after the meeting?

Alison Oliver [00:28:35] I can share the work done by the Gregson Family Foundation.

[00:28:41] Well, can I just say we'll bring this session to an end because I thank you very much indeed.

Panel 2 witnesses

• Mark Hardie, CEO at Access Sport (white shirt, grey balding)
  
• Laura Cordingley, Chief Executive at Chance to Shine
  
• Oliver Scadgell, Participation Director at Lawn Tennis Association

Lord Willis of Knaresborough [00:00:27] We're interested in particular in this link between schools and afterschool provision and how we've got this continuity because it's no good having programmes at school if they simply drop off the drop of the whole spectrum. How would you describe the state of affairs in terms of after-school provision of sports and recreation for children and young people? I mean, what does the landscape look like? And in particular, could I ask you what could be done to improve it? Because we want in this particular session to get from your ideas about what can we do to make things better.

Laura Cordingley [00:01:10] I think the state of the schools is is mixed. So there's some fantastic examples in the community and also inside of the school of brilliant initiatives that are engaging children in wonderful ways. But we did, on the flip side, that sadly, children are still too inactive. So recent reports from the likes of Youth Sport Trust and Sport England are clearly showing that children are not getting anywhere near the minimum levels of daily physical activity. And a huge amount of that is to do with them not accessing school sport during after school hours or even in the community. And sadly, if you're a girl and if you have a black ish minority ethnic background, if you're from a background of low affluence, even less likely to taking part in outside of school sports. Now, from my personal experience at Chance to Shine and through our street programmes, they take place in the top the disadvantaged areas, and eighty six percent of all participants are black Asian minority ethnic. And what they tell us when they come to those sessions for the first time is that seventy five percent of them are doing absolutely no activity outside of school other than physical education. So we know we know there are challenges there. But on the flipside, when it works and you get it right, the benefits are just wonderful for young people. And we see that in terms of the evidence that we can gather. So in terms of what we could be doing, what could we be doing this more effectively? For me, it's about consistency and it's about consistency and what young people experience in school and for how they are helped to transition into community. There are many barriers, but actually if a young person is has had the positive experience on school site within the PE high quality PE curriculum that tends to support in the first place, then we know that if you think about Chance to Shine programmes, 90 percent of children enjoy themselves and they want to continue playing sports. So we therefore need to make sure that it's as easy as possible to remove those barriers, those barriers of time, that the location, the cost. And they're also making sure that you have the right role models in place, quite crucially. And teachers do an absolutely wonderful job. But you do need those role models from within the community to make sure that actually when children get to those sessions and not only do they have people to look up to, they have members that are based in the community of the community and really relatable to the young people.

Mark Hardie [00:03:54] We come at it from a community club angle. We develope community clubs to be connected to their community across a whole range of sports, mainly in deprived areas. And from where we stand in our experience, it is so important if you want to engage an active and underrepresented young people that you provide an exciting range of choice and whilst listening to the previous session, PE and school teachers are incredibly important, but likewise linkage to the community and utilisation of community assets - volunteers, whether they be parents, moms at schools and connecting effectively, is is so, so important. We have really good examples of kind of non-traditional style sports that really do engage disabled young people, lower socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnic minorities from BMX cycling. And you might be surprised to hear things like American football, baseball, dance, petanque, even, and so its young people. I heard about the comments about girls being turned off. It's about making exciting, cool, relevant social fun. And I don't think if I'm really honest, that schools on their own can provide that. And I think it's about linking to community facilities and getting the right workforce and joining up community activities with schools, but with a particular focus on being more developmental, more mentoring, more caring, more person centred. There's something about Ali Oliver saying that we lost something world class with the school sports partnerships. I've lived through both regimes. And we definitely have. It is far more difficult for clubs to connect with schools. You have to do on a very individual basis. We work with around 300 schools. It is much harder work than it should be. There also should be a more connected training offer, which is more developmental, it is not easy for schools. There's lots of great examples, I think blow our own trumpet. We we have inclusive training. There's organisations like Street Games. Youth Sport Trust as well supported and others. But it's it's difficult for schools to shop and know what's going on, so. There's an increased desire to and actually talking going on now to make sure that things get better and there also should be more local events. Festivals that link clubs and community to the school games is really good. But we are talking about here hyper, hyper local level where you can have bring schools to the local clubs. They get moms involved, recruit use as a as a way forward for the year and link it into events like the London Marathon or ride on. The final thing I'd like to say in terms of engaging young people is is is about utilisation of actual travel and the absolute importance of of bike ability. It's not exciting or inclusive enough at the moment. There's a lot of money going into cycling. We're working with the likes of the Youth Sport Trust the ability just to make it more exciting and relevant. It's not just about cycling. It's the use of the streets outside the schools. It's about skating to school, scooting to school, walking to school, running to school. And why not have something like the last mile instead of the daily mile? Everybody has to get out the car. Everybody has to do something active and fun going to school.

Lord Willis of Knaresborough [00:08:12] Mark, before I leave you, you haven't mentioned one of the big factors the previous panel gave us, that access to facilities in local communities is incredibly difficult to get because the owners of those who are basically mostly schools, universities, colleges, et cetera, will not allow open access. So what's your solution to that? What should the committee be recommended to solve that problem?

Mark Hardie [00:08:40] Well, there are problems and it's quite structural and deep rooted. It costs money to open up schools, but it costs money. I think there's an elephant in the room here. And I know that this comes back to the big picture and how important this whole question is about getting people moving, being physically active, but if you're going to open up schools... I know of really good clubs that can't access their local academy halls for weekends and evenings. Kids who have to pay seven pounds an hour to go to after school football clubs. And you're just not going to get the nation active unless there's some kind of assistance given. Access Sport actually build a local cycling facilities and in local parks and we deliberately design them to be open access, to be free, but to be coordinated by community groups, which include the local police, the local club, the local schools, local disabled people's organisations. I'm afraid it is about making things accessible and that includes financially.

Oliver Scadgell [00:10:27] First of all, I think it's worth me to stating a few points of context, and I agree with some of the things that Laura referenced, and that is we know the impacts of covid-19 on the physical and mental health and well-being of children, young people. Equally, we know that pre pandemic participation levels in sport and physical activity amongst children were already a very concerning level, with only forty five percent of children meeting the chief medical officer's recommendation of an hour, a day of sport and physical activity, according to Sport England's latest data. And like Laura mentioned, we are very concerned still about the significant inequality levels in participation with the pandemic, having an overweight impact on those from lower socioeconomic groups and those from ethnically diverse communities. And that's why the LTA very much welcome Sport England's recent Unite the Movement strategy, which focuses on tackling inequalities. And that aligns very much with the LTA's vision of opening tennis up and making this more relevant, accessible, welcoming, enjoyable to anyone who wants to get involved, regardless of age, gender, background, ability or disability. I think that as the nation emerges from these latest restrictions, access to participation in sport and physical activity is fundamental and needs to be prioritised for children, young people both inside and outside of school. And that's the reason why we have invested in our LTA Youth programme, which is designed to make it easier for anyone to get involved in the sport, regardless of whether that's in school or outside of the school. And we are later this month rolling out that programme. We're training primary school teachers, but we're also training tennis coaches as well, because you started the question by asking how we can better support activity outside of the school environments. And we very much fundamentally believe that, yes, it's important that teachers are trained to deliver high quality experiences in school. But equally, we must allow appropriately qualified and safeguarding checked coaches to come into the school environment to ensure that participation is sustainable outside of school. And that's a very significant focus of our LTA youth programme. In fact, we're incentivising teachers who sign up in schools, who sign up to LTA youth and deliver tennis. They can redeem a two hundred and fifty pound voucher against either equipment or, in my view, slightly more importantly, perhaps, coach time. So getting a qualified coach to come into the school environment, support the delivery of tennis in school, but also create that sustainable link to a local club or park sites such that these children can have fun and enjoy the activity outside of the school environment as well.

Lord Addington [00:13:46] The committee has heard about the need to make sport and physical activity more fun and enjoyable for children, particularly what measures will be needed to achieve this? And could you please make the sort of generalities about what we're doing here, not about, you know, things? What are the things you've come across across all your activities that could be used outside your own groups? OK, now let's start with Laura.

Laura Cordingley [00:14:14] I think a lot of sense of yes and fun that is first and foremost in terms of positive attitudes, but children, young people and hoping that they will continue with sport. I probably highlight four key things that we would say, a common principles that we would apply across Chance to Shine and other sports. One is the importance of having a relaxed environment for children. So actually an environment that they can go into where there is less pressure, they have a certain amount of ownership themselves where they can make decisions about the types of activities that they take part in and not too competitive not to skills base, but effectively getting that balance right. So we find the best excesses when children have a sense of a sense of ownership of that conversation around the relaxed environment. And secondly, I think making it inclusive. So making sure that all young people feel safe and the session and I think part of that is very much about having the right role models within those sessions as well. So actually, children that come along to outside school hours, community sessions, they have Lilith's role models. From our experience, having levels have been through the programme is also a third of work coaches of previous participants and adds the extra level of, I guess, peer support for young people. And the third element would be around concentrating on the personal best. So actually, again, concentrating on what they're able to do themselves, the small gains that they get every week, the things that they enjoy and not comparing themselves to the young people so much in actually positioning the activity very much about their own personal their own personal enjoyment. And then the last bit is around consistency. So actually, when this happened with Lord, the environment and the Ofsted is very similar to what we get three, four, five weeks later. And I think that's hugely important because you might get a young person to come along once. But if the offer is not quite right for them, they're just not going to come back and try to make sure that is consistent as possible. And one of the really good pieces of practise that we've developed with one of our partners, England Wales Cricket Board, is for the work that we do in schools and the work that they do for an All Stars programme that they have in clubs. If you are a young person and you take part in Chance to Shine in schools, it's very it's games based. It's fun. It's a world away from sort of what you'd associate with traditional cricket. And when you go into the cricket club, if you're if you're keen to do so afterwards, you do the same sort of games. You have that same sort of terminology, whether that be an alien-themed game or whatever. It is really about helping that confidence. And if we know that they've developed their confidence in school, we want to keep that confidence really high as they go into that outside of school environments and setting.

Mark Hardie [00:17:14] Yes, I would echo everything that Laura said. I think it is really important to give young people have always ask them what they actually want and include them in the decision making. I may be repeating myself, repeating Laura here, but the importance of having the right inspirational people with the right attitudes and. It is about making it fun, making it personal, making it developmental and mentoring and having everybody involved and looking at building the confidence and the teamwork and the like. And that is not, I think, the the history of coaching. And there needs to be a I think a bit of a shift in that. And as I say, there is good practise in the sector Chance to Shine and it can be gathered and it can be put together. And I think a whole new era of coaches and volunteers can can emerge that they are already there. The final thing I think I would add is that is the use of kind of festivals and events and bringing people together face to face. I know it's not perhaps possible right now, but people do get something out of coming to a place, celebrating and having fun and bringing the community together. So. Those are some of the elements I would I would mention.

Lord Addington [00:18:52] Would you regard the special event and the festival as being a key part of this?

Mark Hardie [00:19:00] I would say yes, events and points in time are in every walk of life, important and. There is something, you know, just the humdrum week after week after week, and so, you know, in the summer, the the down time when the exams are finished or whatever, bringing a group of schools together with community clubs, putting on a whole range of things, bringing families in. It makes a difference and it can be it can be used to recruit new activators, new volunteers who can become Walke leaders or ride leaders or whatever, and we are as good as our experience is that it does work.

Oliver Scadgell [00:20:00] I would agree with a lot of what's been said. Enjoyment is fundamentally important to children's sport, and physical activity is at the heart of our own LTI youth programme. A few other elements perhaps that haven't been touched on. When we developed LTA Youth, it was built on insight and research with children and their parents and one of the aspects that we found that's fundamentally important is to ensure that there's an element of progression in all that children do in sport and physical activity. Everyone likes to see themselves improve, and obviously parents like to see their children getting better and enjoying the activity that's taking part in step progression through the coaching curriculum. From a competitive point of view, we feel it's fundamentally important. We also built our coaching curriculum for LTA Youth on movement and motor skills and not just how to serve a good serve, for example. And that is really, really important that we feel because these are the foundations of any child's ability to enjoy physical activity and sport. Another point I would just reference is the importance of parents hasn't come up yet. And one of the aspects of LTA Youth is how we support parents and encouraging children at home to continue learning and developing in tennis. And indeed, that's relevant to any sport. So we've developed lots of home resources which have been actually crucially important over the last 12 months, given the amount of time people spend at home, but really making it easy for parents to support their children and continuing to enjoy tennis whilst at home, we feel it is really important. And perhaps maybe finally, I would just say that not one size fits all. And when you're talking about certain demographics of society, particularly those children from the socioeconomic groups, I feel you need to have a slightly different approach. And our service programme. Actually, we work with national partners like street games and sporting schools to identify the right people, because a lot of it comes down to people in local communities who we can train up with some basic tennis skills and knowledge so they can deliver fun and enjoyable sessions where those children are within their communities, whether it be in these centres or mosques or church halls, and give them the right training, give them the right equipment such that it's and more easily accessible opportunity for those children. And then I think that links into more sustainable opportunities at local park sites that are affordable is also critically important.

Lord Willis of Knaresborough [00:22:48] How important is it that young people actually see role models that look like them in order to be able to increase participation and get confidence of people coming?

Laura Cordingley [00:23:05] I think it's hugely important. It's it's fundamental when all of our research shows that it's helped build the confidence of young people, they need to see people like themselves as part of that process. And actually, interestingly, we we did a survey of Chance to Shine participants. We asked them who their favourite cricketer was. It was a bit of an aside we were interested to see and and actually the vast majority of 80 percent and said my Chance to Shine coach was a favourite cricketer. And effectively that role model, 80 percent of our participants say they look up to their coach. Now, if we go back to where we started our programmes in five and many of our coaches that are now on the programme were former participants. And they do tell us that when they were going through the programme, they just didn't see anybody like themselves and coaching. And effectively, that was a motivator for them to become coaches themselves. And one of the big things that we've done is really support participants on a journey to become leaders, to become coaches from that local community and effectively are are street projects and which is similar to LTA Serve. So it's effectively a club, but it's an informal club that happens year round in communities. And they're very much centred around coaches from the local community supporting children that are reflective of that community. So wherever you go, if you drop a pin on one of our projects and the demographics of that project will be broadly reflective of that local community around it, and particularly for girls as well. And in terms of single female role models and diverse female role models as well, we've got some wonderful examples of female coaches from South Asian backgrounds who have actually told us that and parents have been much more willing to support their girls involvement because they are individual coaches. Not only are they a cricket coach, but they also have full time jobs in other professions. And actually having that diverse level of role model across the sexes, across ethnicities is absolutely fundamental.

Baroness Blower [00:25:25] This is a this is a two part question and it's about the the very serious import matter of duty of care and safeguarding measures. I'm going to start with Oliver, because you referenced this in passing, but I will obviously come to the other two. So the question is specifically about duty of care and safeguarding measures and standards and are they are they fit for purpose and, you know, going on from that? What further steps are needed?

Oliver Scadgell [00:26:01] I fundamentally agree with you that nothing is more important to us than the safety and well-being of those involved in tennis, particularly children and young people and adults at risk. The LTA feel we've been committed to leading the way in safeguarding sport over the last three years of all of our latest safeguarding strategy to try and drive the highest standards across tennis venues and particularly the coach workforce. We've done this through a number of different ways, but why pick out just a few specifics? We've developed a set of standards that will LTA what the venues need to adhere to, to be registered and receive the benefits that come with that. So that includes safeguarding policies and procedures. A dedicated venue welfare officer that includes having the appropriate criminal records checks for those individuals at a venue who would engage with children, young people and the appropriate risk assessments, plus ensuring that coaches are accredited and therefore meeting safeguarding standards. And that is just fundamentally important. We also feel that it's really important to increase the awareness and knowledge of safeguarding issues within our sport and sport more broadly. We were very pleased to partner last year with Sport England on a safe to play campaign using innovative technology called Augmented Reality, which is used to bring to life real life safeguarding cases and stories to ensure that our coaches, our venues, our parents, importantly, are up to speed, aware of some of the matters they need to be aware of to ensure that they deliver a safe and enjoyable activity across the sport. We're also delighted that actually for the last two years, we've been rated as excellent across all categories of the NSPCC's Child Protection Sport annual survey.

[00:27:56] Obviously, I was aware earlier this week of the announcement about the changing of the law to recognise sports coaches as being in a position of trust. And I would like to thank Baroness Grey-Thompson and the House of Lords more broadly for the work that they've done in this regard, particularly through the duty of care reports. We feel this is fundamentally important. It will be a game-changer in terms of supporting overall the health, safety, wellbeing of children, young people in tennis. A few other things that we feel needs to be done: removing the statutory presumption to release without fail and adjusting time scales and authorisation levels of pre-charge bail. Again, we think is really important. There was some recent announcements on that as well. And finally, we feel that establishing more consistent processes for information sharing between the police and national governing bodies and between national governing bodies is really important. We do share information with the likes of the FA, the ECB, the RFU, but actually sharing information from police to NGBs we think is critically important. And finally, I would suggest, although we have robust safeguarding standards, as I mentioned, for our venues, looking at a consistent approach across all sporting venues, we feel would be really helpful because, of course, there are sports venues that are multisport venues which perhaps are a little bit of a missed opportunity right now. So those would be some of the things that we would recommend.

Mark Hardie [00:29:44] I wouldn't have a great deal to add to that, except to say that with Covid and clearly the declining mental health of amongst young people, that I think mental health training for coaches and volunteers is certainly something that we are focussing on. And it's an opportunity both in a negative and positive way to for work coaches to to learn how to support young people generally better to support themselves as well, but also to deal with really important and sometimes really concerning issues. So are the other things I just like to underscore, as we heard from the last session, about perhaps a lack of standardisation around after school provision, just from our own personal perspective. We see schools do really care about checking. NGBs like Lawn Tennis Association are excellent at making sure the standards are there.

[00:31:53] But I can readily understand that there may be schools that. Not not through any sort of get clubs or other people in that may not have the requisite standards in place or some kind of standardisation, it is very much about teamwork. It's about schools. It's about clubs. It's about NGB combining and reviewing and renewing and a really strong culture.

Laura Cordingley [00:32:37] I think the emphasis around the education of the workforce is absolutely crucial here. And I would absolutely endorse the view about increasing this around well-being for children and especially coaches in the community. Not only are they coaches, they are seen as confidants, as peers and they are quite often and in an environment where young people will disclose and display levels of ill or poor mental health and actually help our coaches as much as possible to understand that and to respond to that is going to be crucial because we have started training some of our coaches in mental health first aid. We've taken the approach to try and get some people to be qualified as tutors because as a charity that is a more cost effective route for us. It is it's quite costly to put an entire workforce through this training. But but what I would say is we absolutely should all commit to it. I'd probably expand that as well around the theme of education to say that we get a huge amount of support from the ECB as our governing body and we take a lot of guidance from the Child Protection in Sports unit. One of the things that we feel that potentially is missing is those the sharing of the learnings that happen along the way in between what effectively are big reviews. So for an organisation like ourselves, actually, that the nature of some of these conversations are very confidential and they should remain so. But actually, if they can be if there is a way to share in a forum the small learnings that could help us embed better practise as we go, that would be absolutely wonderful for an organisation like ourselves. And then thirdly, and because we do cross that barrier between school and community and we're very confident from a sport and community sport perspective to everything we do absolutely adheres to the guidance put down from the ECB, Sport England and the Child Protection in Sport Unit. We'd really like to decide how we can better align with and the education world. So I'm aware of the Casey review and actually how we can do the best possible job we can to make sure that the needs of what we're seeing in the sports sector and how we're delivering also reflect the needs of schools and any guidance and support from a national level. We can get to tie those two things together and when we do cross those barriers would be wonderfully helpful for us.

Baroness Grey-Thompson [00:35:05] There was a lot of celebration earlier this week where the government announced to begin to bring in positions of trust legislation. Strangely, we might actually have some people who oppose it. And so I've got two parts to my question, if that's OK. Do you see any risks in bringing in positions of trust legislation? Because we may still face some pushback from people who say it's not needed. And the second part to it is that we've seen governing bodies and other associations, whatever process is in place, it's still really quite difficult for the participants or athletes to raise those complaints. Is there anything more that we need to do in terms of education or being able to flag with young people a different process which they might not know exists? So the question is, what more can we do beyond processes to actually make a complete system work?

Oliver Scadgell [00:36:05] Yeah. So maybe I'll take your second question first, if I may. We obviously recognise that the prevalence of safeguarding cases in high performance sports is more common, if I can use that word, given the closer nature of the relationship between a player performance plan and a sports coach. And so part of our safeguarding strategy has been very much focussed on providing support and guidance to our performance coaches, as well as ensuring that our athletes and performance players know where to go to to raise concerns. We have a dedicated hotline in terms of our safeguarding processes. We have a whistle blowing policy and helpline where players and indeed coaches can confidentially raise any issues or concerns that they have and know and have the confidence that they'll be dealt with in a confidential and appropriate manner. And that's fundamentally important. We also ensure that our annual audit process that we carry out of all registered venues, we make sure we do that Yardley with all our performance accredited centres for the reasons I mentioned earlier. So whether it's our national academies or regional. Development centres on local development senses, we ensure that we visit those centres of which together there are 70 to 80 on an annual basis to ensure that the standards they're operating against are at the highest level. In terms of your your first question. There are not any concerns that we have with the bringing in of the legislation that was announced earlier this week. As I said already, we feel it's fundamentally important to further safeguard children and young people in tennis. We were huge advocates of it. We staged a roundtable event at one of our major crosscourt events a few years ago with the Ministry of Justice to go along with some other sports to put forward our arguments. And therefore, we're just very delighted that the announcement came out early this week and looking forward to supporting the various organisations and bodies, hopefully once it's approved to implement across tennis.

Mark Hardie [00:38:29] Yes, on the first question, the positions of trust wholeheartedly support it, and to be honest, I feel it's a bit of a no brainer. In relation to the second question, I think all I can usefully suggest is perhaps that more of a practise is embedded both into schools and clubs of taking the time to make children and parents aware of of helplines. Perhaps that's just part of the fabric of what happens, whether it's, I don't know, school assemblies or at clubs, coaches are talking about it a bit more. I don't know if there is a sufficient culture around that yet, but that might help.

Laura Cordingley [00:39:26] And I think it's appropriate for me to stick to the second part of the question. I would say a communication and culture are two of the most important things, First and foremost, really proactive communication about how people can access support and how they can make disclosures if the need to, but backed up by a culture which says and clearly demonstrates that if we have such issues, we will deal with them and we will make sure that we deal with it appropriately and we will promote the fact that we've dealt with these things. That in itself, a proactive culture, will help drive forward the confidence that people would have in coming forward. So I think that has to come from the top, but it also has to come at a grassroots level as well.

Lord Hayward [00:40:17] Mark already answered part of this question, of how you describe the state of affairs in terms of accessibility in after four after hours recreation. And therefore I'd say to the other two witnesses, please don't repeat what Mark's already said, because I think he's made the position reasonably clear. But you can add to it. But can I go off completely left field, my Lord chairman, and go back to an earlier question. I was fascinated by the opening comments in terms of breaking down barriers and the like and therefore on a totally different field, while commenting on accessibility after hours. Is there any cultural barrier that you thought to yourself, if only I could break that down, we would get so much more participation? We're talking here about the people who don't participate in recreation and physical activity. So two very, very different aspects to a question.

Mark Hardie [00:41:32] I think one sort of cultural thing, if I had an extremely interesting conversation with a young lady last night whose petition you may be aware of about not being heard within her school setting and not being allowed an equal choice of access to sport because she was being told from the top down. And that really struck me that the culture of giving children a voice in sport and the choice of sports and the way it's delivered, not necessarily that they completely dictate it or make it unrealistic, but that they are consulted, their views are consulted because young people are passionate. This particular young lady was extremely eloquent.

Laura Cordingley [00:42:36] This is about embracing everybody's diversity and trying to make sure that no matter who you are, the offer is right for you to be able to take part with as minimal barriers as possible. And I guess to give a practical example of that, and one of our street projects in Birmingham that caters for children eight plus takes place from 8:00 till 10:00 at night on a Friday. If you look at that on paper, you might go would ever schedule a session at that time. But actually, it takes place after the vast majority of the children have been to their local mosque for prayer. And that works exceptionally well for their families and their parents to be able to take them, to facilitate them to do that. But we would not know that unless we had those conversations with the local community and had the right coaches in place is actually this is what works. This is absolutely not a one size fits all model, but it very much is about listening to the young people, listening to their families and understanding. So for me, it's not a there's not a magic switch. But I think you absolutely have to understand the diverse nature of young people that you wants to be able to take part. And you have to be really super specific about removing some of those barriers. It could even be making sure that the session is in a really safe location. So, again, to give you another example, and we had a very long standing street project in Camden, one of the biggest things that children tell us is safety and feeling safe perceptions is paramount. There was a knife crime incident around the corner from that session and that session, literally, children just did not turn up the next week. So we had to do huge amounts of work around understanding the challenges and actually creating another safe space for children to go to and in that local community. And that literally took Work coaches to knock on doors of parents to communicate to them about that. You have to know the community to know the issues that are going on and to be able to work with it. And I think that that is just hugely important.

Oliver Scadgell [00:44:37] Yeah, just a few points on culture, I would agree with the comments made, like I said earlier on, there's not a one size fits all. I wholeheartedly believe in listening to the voice of the child. And I would cite again some examples from our LTA Serves programme, whereby we take tennis into communities where people feel safe to lowest points is delivered by people from those communities. We train up so that they feel comfortable and in familiar surroundings and in locations that they used to go and see perhaps for other sporting activities. And by doing that, we've seen thirty thousand children go through the service programme, over seventy five percent from lower socioeconomic groups, over 50 percent from ethnically diverse communities. So wholeheartedly believe that is fundamentally important.

Lord Hayward [00:45:39] Can I just follow on from that and just ask whether children should actually have access to public facilities outside school hours? Is that a practical proposal or is it the councils need the revenue from fee paying adults. Is there a way around it? Do you know of examples where actually kids have been given access?

Laura Cordingley [00:46:16] So absolutely, children need access to community facilities and access to leisure facilities and access to whatever is the most local accessible facility for them. School sites are important still. And for many young people, that is their first experience of a transition into community sport. And our experience is that in more urban areas, getting access to those facilities is increasingly difficult and price is absolutely an issue. We've got sessions that have basically said over the last five to 10 years they're being priced out of leisure centres because it is a charity. We kind of we have, but just as far as it can stretch, unfortunately. But our commitment to education is paramount. And what I would say is within all of this, we shouldn't forget the really hyper local community organisations, that really small community club, that multiuse games area that's in in in a state, you know, they are at times the most important place for young people to access to the facilities that actually those facilities tend to be the ones that, from a cost perspective are the least restrictive as you become more commercial. And that's where that's where the challenges we find. The other thing I would say is facilities are are hugely important. You can't deliver session unless you've got somewhere to go. But equally as important is getting the offer right, because you can have the best facility in the world. But if the offer is not right for young people, they're just not going to come back. So, yes, you need the place. But just as importantly, you need you need the offer. And that is just as just as important.

Oliver Scadgell [00:48:05] I have a number of points to make here, I mean, firstly, starting with school facilities, we obviously recognise, as has already been mentioned, that they're not always accessible to their local communities. And that's why we welcome the focus of government Sport England on looking at how we can better open up school facilities outside of school hours and overcoming some of the operational barriers we know that exist. Interestingly, and I'm very happy to put this in writing to the committee, we're actually piloting exactly that with some primary and secondary schools on a local level and using technology as a vehicle to help facilitate that with online banking systems and get access systems, which we think is quite innovative and could be something that other sports might be interested in in the future. So very happy to share that and some written material that we can send in. Furthermore, I would just like to point out the importance of for us, for tennis park sites and therefore local authorities, because local authorities own and operate the vast majority of park tennis sites across the country. We obviously recognise the significant financial pressures local authorities are under at the moment. This morning the National Audit Office referenced that 94 percent of councils will cut their spending next year. And that's why we feel it's really important that we can come in and support local authorities with an offer that helps to sustain those tennis court facilities for the long term future. That offer is built on insight, on what we know about barriers to participation. And one of the biggest barriers is the journey to court, making it easier for people to find work and access a tennis facility like they can buying a cinema ticket on their phone. And that's what we're trying to do with some of the tools that we're providing to local authorities. We also work with charity partners in tennis for free, who provides regular family free tennis sessions and weekends for local communities to access, which we feel is really important in providing that hyper local opportunity for children, young people and their families from all different backgrounds to be able to easily access participation opportunities within tennis.

[00:50:17] So absolutely, we understand and advocate for the vital role that local authorities do play in supporting the delivery of opportunities for children and young people in tennis and in school more broadly. And we would like to see a commitment from government to support agencies to ensure that parks and open spaces can continue to be sustainable for the long term future, because we feel it's so important to sustaining participation levels and growing participation levels across our sports.

Mark Hardie [00:50:52] The activation of community parks is a fantastic example of a collective of clubs not far from Parliament at the Elephant Castle called Burgess Sports. It's about 10 different sports and we supported them over a number of years. And it really is a model that's worth investigating because they have that under their banner. They pick up everything from park run to BMX to football to cricket, and it's it's highly inclusive and they have excellent young leaders. So if you're looking for an example of utilisation of of parks, that would be that would be one.

[00:51:49] Access Sport works to to build accessible, open access community cycling hubs and facilities because we believe in the importance of cycling. But it's a generalised principle and that when regeneration efforts happen and money goes into housing as it is doing and the regeneration that the the appropriate spaces are put in, and that there is a duty on the planners and the local authorities to do that. But I'm afraid that there is a problem with local authorities. We work with a good 30, 40 of them. We've seen the vast majority of them really hollowed out in terms of staff and time, which puts limits on it. So I'm an advocate for helping local authorities to fulfil their roles more.

Lord Snape [00:53:17] Can I just put the question we put all our witnesses. What recommendation would you like the committee to make to the government - other than more money?

Laura Cordingley [00:53:47] There's just a couple of big but quite impactful things, which is, one, cross-departmental joined up thinking by government. Sport and physical activity have so much to offer across all government departments. And there is absolutely no doubt at the moment there's a willing there, but it is just not coordinated. And I think within that, for each department to be really clear about how their objectives are contributing to an overall aim for the country in terms of the health and well-being of the nation will be absolutely crucial.

[00:54:15] I think coupled with that, having some measures that all sports and all organisations like Chance to Shine can adopt readily to show real progress on the well-being side of things. I think the measures around physical activity and physical literacy are strong and from a Chance to Shine perspective, that's been very easy for us to to adopt. So the Sport England measures of our physical literacy are simple and we've been able to take those and compare those to participants in the Chance to Shine programme around confidence, around enjoyments, around competence and understanding of sport. If we had similar measures in other areas that we could all adopt, I think as a as a government, as a committee, you would quite quickly see the difference collectively that everybody can make.

[00:54:58] And my last ask would be - it's not about money, but it is resources. I'd love to see businesses help the not-for-profit sector with their expertise and skills. We don't need money. We just need their competence and their brains to to help us achieve our goals.

Mark Hardie [00:55:35] I would want to take a kind of macro stance to this, that if you stand back, there is generational opportunity right now because of Covid and because of environmental concerns and the prominence of physical health, to really make a step change in the way that physical activity and movement is viewed. I would ask that the committee recommend a really bold approach and I would reference some kind of right to access meaningful access for all to physical activity in the promotion of physical activity. There are references in UN Conventions on the Rights of the Child, disability people's rights that could be borrowed and adopted. With that come correlative duties for central and local government. It should run as a as a golden thread through all government departments that they have a a duty to promote physical activity and the benefits thereof.

[00:56:53] There needs to be some sort of overarching, unifying, basic kind of human right and duty attached to this to elevate things. And I do like the the wording of the Sport England's unifying the movement. I think that sometimes the words sport or recreation or outdoor sport or adventure, they're all just aspects of something that's bigger, which is about physical activity and movement. And I think using those words sorry to perhaps, you know, doubt the title for this for this committee, but I think Sport England have shown a way forward with that to you to unify the movement. And it also comes with that word movement of social change. And I think now is the time to be looking at that. The other thing I would like to say is just recognition that that sport and physical activity can really contribute to pollution in the environment and getting people walking, cycling, scooting. And that is probably the biggest sort of existential thing that we all face when just making sure that that is woven into the narrative.

Oliver Scadgell [00:58:21] Three main points for me. Firstly, given the impact of covid-19 on the health and well-being of the nation, it's vital that the government places sport and physical activity at the heart of the nation's recovery from the pandemic. Secondly, a little bit like Mark mentioned, we feel that specifically for children, young people, a big, bold, simple commitment to every child to be entitled to activity for one hour a day, as recommended by the chief medical officer, would be a game changer. We feel that this needs to be facilitated by better cross-government departments working, which has already been referenced. And backed up with an updated school Sport and Activity Action Plan, which I was referenced in a previous session, and specifically the elevation of PE is a core subject within the curriculum specialist PE teacher training to improve the quality of provision and a longer term commitment and guarantee of the PE in schools for our schools, for premium and school games and school games organisers.

[00:59:30] And then finally, in terms of social impact, which has come up a few times this afternoon, is fundamentally important as an outcome of physical activity. For a long time now, that hasn't been a unified approach to a social impact return model across sports. And we feel that that's fundamentally important for the government to lead on with the support of Sport England say that we have one impact model measuring the impact, the social impact of sport across all sport and physical activity.

Lord Moynihan [01:00:05] Picking up on Laura's point, I think it's really important what she said. Back in 2005, the British Olympic Association set up the FTSE 100 initiative with the twenty six Olympic sports and twenty six leading companies in the FTSE 100. I think what you're saying is that, look, this can be massively extended and that linking businesses, both local businesses to local charities, major businesses to significant sporting charities, even major spectator sports which have the resources and the wherewithal to sports charities, in order to build the lega...lt can be legal advice. It can be financial advice, preparing accountants, helping with a whole range of professional responsibilities that are increasingly being put on the charities that work in this sector - would be a major national initiative. I think that would be a recommendation you would welcome.

Laura Cordingley [01:01:08] Yes, absolutely.

Lord Willis of Knaresborough [01:01:10] It would be very helpful if you could send us that recommendation, supported by Lord Moynihan.

Laura Cordingley [01:01:24] I'd be very happy to do so.