Sport in School
Karen Gillon has prepared a report for the committee on sport in school.
My report was nearly as long in the making as Mike Russell's report on film was. Perhaps we could have done a joint inquiry, Mike. It was a very interesting report to undertake. I am sorry that members did not get copies of it until Wednesday but, until last week, I was still completing a series of visits to inform the report.
Sport in school across Scotland is very patchy. There are some examples of excellent practice and some of not-so-excellent practice. Sport has managed consistently to undersell itself and the importance that it can have on the overall performance of students, academically or in relation to their health. That is still the case. Frequently, I have heard people talking about sport for sport's sake, and they do not yet appreciate how sport can raise achievement in schools. Used as a vehicle in the curriculum, it can help to maintain discipline, particularly among boys, acting as an incentive to participate in activities.
Sport can also improve young people's health. One thing that struck me in my conversations with primary teachers was the inability of children to play with each other when they first come to school. That is a sad reflection on the sort of society in which we live, shaped by the dominance of the computer games culture among young people and by parents' concerns about safety issues when they let their kids out to play.
There is much room for improvement. One of the most interesting visits that I undertook was to a school at Ashton Upon Mersey in Manchester. Twenty per cent of its places are grant-aided, but it draws 80 per cent of its pupils from a fairly typical council housing estate in the city. It is a designated sports college and manages to use sport across the curriculum in an imaginative and innovative way. I learned a lot from being there to see how that school has managed to use sport as a vehicle for academic achievement. The pupils' grades are up, their numeracy and literacy problems are down and discipline has improved.
The school is now also a designated beacon school, which provides a model for using sport positively. That model would not be right for every school in Scotland, but we could learn from it how to use all aspects of culture as vehicles for academic achievement. Conducting the inquiry has made me realise that sport is not the only aspect that we could use to do that. We also need to address the health needs of our young people.
Tension clearly exists between rolling out further elite schools, such as Bellahouston Academy, which concentrate on elite performers, and promoting community sports schools to raise overall achievement and produce new elite performers. However, I believe that that tension can be overcome.
I have made a number of recommendations, which I hope members have had time to consider. I hope that my report is a starting point, that it gives people a flavour of where we are and that we can make progress on the recommendations in order to move forward sport in schools.
I went into the exercise with the clear idea that sport was important, and have come out of it with a clearer idea of the importance of sport: it can be used as a vehicle for raising academic achievement and improving health and general levels of attainment in schools. We must consider how we can take forward sport in schools in Scotland in a more constructive way across the board, rather than the patchy approach that is used at present.
Thank you, Karen. Do members have questions or comments?
I thank Karen for her report, which I thought was excellent, and I agree with many of the points that were made in it. Having had a chance to chat with Karen, I know that the school that she visited in Ashton Upon Mersey is an example of an impressive establishment from which we can learn. I am glad that I had that chance to find out more about it in detail.
I like the report's emphasis on improving sport development in primary schools. Sport in primary schools does not appear to have advanced—in fact, if anything, it has retreated—since my school days, which were a long time ago. I am greatly concerned that we are not making progress in that area, and I approve in particular of the emphasis on that in Karen's report.
The report raises a number of points about the possible conflict between league sport and sport for all, but suggests that those two approaches can work together and that, where possible, the emphasis of Government and Executive policy should be on encouraging sport as a vehicle for social inclusion, mass participation and mass enjoyment. That sentiment, which I wholly endorse, comes through in the report.
I thank Karen Gillon for her report, which summarises well the position of sport, not only in schools but among young people in Scotland. We should be concerned that young people do not participate very much in physical activity—not always from their own disinclination, but perhaps from lack of opportunity.
However, I take issue with you, Karen, on an area to which you alluded in your summary. You put too much emphasis on involving children in sport and physical activity through their schools. For example, in recommendation 6.2, you say:
"Primary schools should be prioritised in future developments."
Much as I agree with that statement, we must also consider pre-school children. Most of our children go into pre-school education at the ages of three and four. Are we considering starting at that young age? Being involved in physical activity is a lifelong activity. If physical activity is not started at an early age, it is much more difficult to bring young people on board and to keep them on board as adults. That must be our ultimate aim.
You made other recommendations on how to achieve the joined-up approach by Government that we all talk about. It is obvious that sport takes place in columns, but we do not live our lives in columns. We must consider ensuring that all sporting facilities—whether provided by local authorities, sports clubs or coaches or in schools—match up together, particularly for young people and primary school children, to become an almost seamless flow of sport for a young person, who will then become involved either in a particular sport or in physical activity. Sport should not be confined to the hours of 9 am to 3 pm.
I am concerned about the emphasis on primary schools. We are all aware of the restrictions on our primary school teachers in relation to training and on the time that they have available. When I read the recommendations, I had a completely personal thought: as the mother of a child at primary school, I am aware that the children get playtimes and lunch breaks that are not structured. I am not saying that those times should be completely structured, but they are times when enjoyable physical activity could be brought into the child's day without having an impact on the teacher or time in the classroom.
Your final conclusion asks for further research and study into best practice in Europe to be undertaken. The need for joined-up action came across from your report. I hope that the committee can take on board the fact that, while many sporting activities go on in Scotland, they go on in separate columns. I want the committee to examine the practicalities of producing strategic frameworks and partnerships to ensure that when someone becomes involved in sport, they can do so horizontally as well as vertically.
The report emphasises that there is an important issue about teenage girls. When girls get to a certain age, they no longer want to participate in sport. I am a mother of girls and can recall the notes that had to be written and the excuses that had to be made because they did not want to do gym. The irony is that my eldest daughter is never in when I call her now—she is always in the gym. There might be a different way of doing things. Given that we are talking about lifelong health, perhaps we need to change the emphasis on how sport is approached. If my daughter is going off to the gym, many of her peers will be as well. It appears that an ideal opportunity was missed at school.
In part 6.7, the report talks about involving teachers, parents and the wider community in the delivery of extra-curricular sport in school. There is a cultural issue surrounding sport. In communities in my constituency, football is seen as something that young lads get involved in. I know that that is not the case, but the attitude is that football is not for the whole family. It is done at school for half an hour or an hour every week. It would make sense to consider wider community involvement in sport. Perhaps the community could get involved in appropriate sports in community schools.
I am reminded of discipline. A number of the lads in my constituency have told me that they are not allowed to play football any more; they were excluded from sport because they caused problems in the classroom. That is counterproductive. The report makes clear the fact that sport can be used to raise attainment. Sport also plays a major role in building confidence in young people. We should consider a different approach to discipline and not use exclusion from sport as a punishment.
I thank Karen Gillon for the report. I have read it once, but there are parts that I want to go back to. I hope that we can take forward some of its recommendations.
I do not want to repeat what people have said, but it is worth drawing together points that Cathy Peattie and Fiona McLeod made. Part 6.7 refers to the involvement of parents, teachers and the wider community. Fiona touched on the fact that teachers have a heavy work load and pointed out that it can be difficult for teachers, who are already busy, to fit sport into children's lives. However, many people give of their time voluntarily to support young people through sport in clubs or in schools. We must build on that and break down the barriers between sport in clubs and sport in schools. We must bring together those areas and use all the resources, experience and good will that exist to ensure that all our young people can take advantage of sporting opportunities that will stand them in good stead in later life.
The report is excellent and contains many good recommendations at the end. There is nothing in it with which I could disagree, so I suggest that we accept the report and the recommendations as a whole. Is there any opposition to that?
I do not want to be negative, but I would prefer to have a much more positive final recommendation, rather than a recommendation for another comparison with other people. We have a fair idea of where we want to go with sport in Scotland, and I think that the committee should progress that idea.
You are right, but we should not close ourselves off from learning from the experiences of others—I do not suggest that that is what you are saying—so we should include that recommendation in the report, but recognise that the emphasis should be on what we have and how we can develop it. Is that acceptable?
Members indicated agreement.
Is it agreed that we refer Karen Gillon's report to the Parliament for publication as a report?
Members indicated agreement.