£7.2M LOTTERY FUNDING OPENS NEW DOORS FOR YOUTH OUTSIDE SCHOOL HOURS

Adventurous new sporting and recreational opportunities outside school hours are opening up for young people as the Big Lottery Fund announces more than £7 million today for 83 School Sport Co-ordinator projects in England.

This is part of the £25.5 million strand of Young People's Fund and allows School Sport Co-ordinator partnerships across the country to bring organised programmes of physical activities to young people.

The local sport partnerships are working together to motivate young people through physical exercise to improve their health and self-esteem by building sporting and social skills in team activities. They particularly benefit children who may need encouragement to participate, including those in danger of exclusion from school and young people with special needs.

Tackling obesity and devising innovative and exciting challenges for all young participants in outdoor activities has been the aim of many of the successful projects.

Sir Clive Booth, Chair of the Big Lottery Fund, said: "In keeping with the spirit of our Young People's Fund, there has been much consultation with the young people themselves on the design of many of these imaginative and innovative projects which we believe will raise high levels of enthusiasm and motivation by participants. These exciting new challenges put young people in areas they have not experienced before. Local partnerships across the country expect to see increased performance both outside and inside the classroom as a result."

The £7.2 million of lottery funding rolling out today will create 82 innovative physical activity projects across England as follows:

Region                 Number of Grants    Amount Awarded (£) East Midlands                        14             1,157,119 Eastern                              13             1,210,434 London                                6               508,440 North East                            2               151,843 North West                            9               687,347 South East                           11               872,198 South West                            6               721,620 West Midlands                        14             1,157,467 Yorkshire & Humber                    8               738,553

Total Awarded £7,205,021

One of the partnerships benefiting from today's announcement is Worden Sports College partnership in Lancashire which has been awarded £75,951 for boxing, cycling, crown green bowling and outdoor activities for young people in the South Ribble area schools.

"Boxing is highly popular in the north west following the success of Amir Khan in the Olympics, so we are looking forward to the boxing programme we are delivering in the partnership secondary schools," said Karl Lucas, Worden Sports College Sports Development Officer. Amir Khan helped launched the Young People's Fund when the programme was launched last year.

Karl added: "We have a fantastic role model in Amir and are hoping this will raise the profile of boxing in young people - boys and girls - and build confidence in young people who do not normally take part in sport for various reasons. This activity has not been offered to schools in the area in the past, so we have developed close links with our local boxing club to provide our pupils with an avenue to progress in the sport, should they like to."

And local sailing club pupils from a special school in the West Midlands are among those to benefit from a £113,940 grant to Biddulph Specialist Sports College. They will be 'buddied' with those from mainstream school to develop self esteem and improve social skills.

Liz Stonier Partnership Development Manager at Biddulph Sports College said: "I am delighted with the grant as it will enable us to target key groups of children and involve them in new and exciting opportunities. Health and fitness is so important that we hope with these new initiatives pupils will be inspired to become physically active. All first and primary schools within the area will be equipped with playground activity signs that will encourage the children to exercise regularly and independently.

A £94,807 grant to the Get Active School Sport Partnership in Doncaster will bring benefits to over 2,000 young people in the town and surrounding areas. By working together with many local service providers the partnership hopes to encourage, inspire and motivate young people to take part in new, alternative fun physical activities to develop a lifelong passion for participating in physical activity and sport in Doncaster. Dance, circus skills, cycle, orienteering, multiskill and fitness sessions will be provided on school sites and at local leisure centres after hours or at lunchtime clubs.

Suzy Broadhead, Partnership Development Manager, said: "We are delighted with the grant as it will allow us to provide targeted activities for those young people who currently do not participate for a variety of reasons, including pupils from rural and deprived areas and young people with learning difficulties."

In the North East, thousands of young people in the District of Chester-le-Street will benefit from a £56,970 grant to the Chester-le-Street School Sport Co-ordinator Partnership based at Roseberry Sports and Community College. Playground activities, gymnastics, dance, martial arts and fitness clubs are some of the activities on offer to entice more young people to take part in physical activity.

Andrew Scothern, Partnership Development Manager for the Chester-le-Street (or add school sport before coordinator) Partnership said: "We are delighted as the grant will enable us to introduce a high quality out-of-school hours programme across all of our schools in activities that young people have previously not had an opportunity to participate in. The programme will focus on those young people who are currently not accessing physical activity to hopefully enthuse and encourage them to lead a more active and healthy lifestyle."

Thousands of young people in the South West will be helped with a £170,910 grant to the Plymstock School Sports Partnership. The Give It A Go project aims to broaden schools' provision and opportunities for students. The programme of activities will use the power of sport to engage children and young people and encourage them to become lifelong participants in healthy physical activity. Panathlon Challenge - a multi sports activity - will be provided for children from secondary and special schools as well as a purposeful play project for primary age groups, a rowing re-integration scheme aimed at students at risk of exclusion and multi-skills clubs for girls.

Rob Wright, Partnership Development Manager for the School Sport Coordinators scheme said: "We are delighted, the grant will allow us to develop some key areas of work that can make a real difference to children and young people. Many of the students who will be involved in this project are not currently participating in school sport and healthy physical activity both of which are now acknowledged as being important in raising educational achievement."

Big Lottery Fund Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102030 Textphone: 0845 6021 659 Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on:http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Notes to Editors Big Lottery Fund is the joint operating name of the New Opportunities Fund and the National Lottery Charities Board (which made grants under the name of the Community Fund). The Big Lottery Fund, launched on 1 June 2004, is distributing half of all National Lottery good cause funding across the UK.

The Big Lottery Fund is building on the experience and best practice of the merged bodies to simplify funding in those areas where they overlap and to ensure Lottery funding provides the best possible value for money. To date, the two merged Funds' have committed more than £5 billion to initiatives with national, regional and local partners from the public, voluntary, charity and private sectors, with a particular focus on disadvantage.

Client ref 06-05-100