ABSTRACT
There has been growing concern over the past three decades or more with what is said to be a trend towards sport and physical activity becoming increasingly rare features of contemporary lifestyles, and especially those of young people. Indeed, one of the most striking characteristics of British government policy towards youth sport in recent years has been the assumption that PE, school sport (especially competitive team sport) and physical activity are in rapid decline. More specifically, the apparent failure of many schools to provide youngsters with what has been ambiguously described as ‘two or more hours of high quality PE’ (Department for Education and Skills [DfES]/DCMS, 2003), as well as the purported ‘privileging’ of sport and team games over physical activity in PE curricula (Kirk, 2004; Penney and Chandler, 2000; Penney and Evans, 1999), is believed to be among the central reasons for young people’s supposed declining levels of participation and the perceived failure of physical educationalists in ensuring that young people remain actively involved in leisure-sport and physical activity both in the short and long term (Green et al., 2005a; Kirk, 2004; Smith et al., 2004). What is particularly striking about this concern over aspects of young people’s lives is its near-universal acceptance across a range of societies in the Western world and beyond for, in both more and less developed societies, there is now a broad consensus that declining participation in sport and physical activity – alongside the growing prevalence of ‘unhealthy’ diets and an increasing preference for engaging in sedentary leisure activities – is the main ‘cause’ of a ‘health crisis’ said to be emerging among children and youth (see Chapter 5). Set in the context of this concern, the central objective of this chapter is to examine
those policies that are designed to address these perceived problems by promoting the
development of youth sport through PE and school sport (PESS) and the enhancement of school and community sports club links. The chapter begins with a brief discussion of what the available empirical evidence suggests about the levels and patterns of young people’s participation in sport and physical activity in Europe and elsewhere. In doing so, it questions the adequacy of many of the existing assumptions about these aspects of young people’s lives. This is then followed by a more detailed examination of what might be regarded as one of the most significant youth sports development policies to have been introduced in schools in England in recent years: the Physical Education, School Sport and Club Links (PESSCL) strategy. In particular, we shall discuss how the implementation of the School Sport Partnership (SSP) programme, as part of the PESSCL strategy, has come to impact on the activities of teachers, and hence the experiences of PESS among their pupils, in rather differential ways and in a manner that may, in the event, have a number of outcomes that no one has planned and which no one has intended. The chapter concludes by reviewing some of the salient issues raised by the implementation of PESSCL and SSPs and briefly reflects upon the future of youth sports development in schools.
