The Government has announced major funding and a big push to tackle inactivity. The Get Active strategy aims to ensure that by 2030 an additional 2.5 million adults and 1 million children are measurably involved in sports and other physical activities in England.
Former England rugby union player Ugo Monye is one of the high-profile sportspeople who formed a task force created to lead this initiative.
The health advantages of getting children and adults more active are well documented. However, the strategy promotes the view that: “The more active we are, the healthier we become both physically and mentally, the stronger our communities, and the more prosperous our society.”
To make this happen, the Government has appealed to schools, sports clubs, public sector providers and commercial sports ventures, to create more community-based opportunities for everyone to get active.
We are already there!
Of course, this is a campaign the team at The Little Foxes Club can support 100%! We have been providing opportunities for children to get active in their local area for many years.
There are clearly countless parents who already fully appreciate the benefits of their children being engaging in school and community-based sports too. This is clearly evidenced by the thousands of children now registered in our sessions, and the amazing feedback we get from parents.
This Government Get Active strategy also echoes another one of our core principles – that sports activities at a grassroots level should be “accessible, inclusive and sustainable.”
That too is something we have worked hard to deliver across all our sessions, from Holiday Camps that welcome children as young as two years old, to our Foxes FC Masterclasses for advanced young football players.
Safety and security should be assured as well – according to the Get Active strategy – particularly for children engaged in sporting endeavours. Those values are integrated into everything we do, including carefully recruiting, screening and training every member of our team.
Every child should feel like a winner
One of the aims of this new Government campaign is to create “a lifetime of engagement with sport and physical activity”, something we also seek to achieve.
We have become a UK leader in delivering activity programmes for children. That is certainly not the result of focusing purely on high quality coaching for future sports ‘stars’. Our ethos has always been that every child should be able to enjoy the sense of achievement, new confidence and vital life skills that come from involvement in local sports clubs and activities.
How can we help to support the ‘Get Active’ strategy?
One of the biggest barriers to people of all ages being involved in local sports and other physical activities is that local opportunities can be ‘thin on the ground’. Especially local activities that are easily accessible and affordable.
According to the official announcement about this new national initiative, “Get Active is a call to arms for organisations across the country who deliver sport and physical activity to go further to ensure they are prepared for both future challenges and opportunities.”
That is a rallying cry that we would be delighted to answer! Schools, local sports clubs and other organisations are invited to get in touch with us, to discuss how we can stimulate and support greater involvement from local children.
We are already a highly recommended provider of curriculum and extracurricular sports activities for schools. So, of course we would be delighted to play our role in helping more schools to meet the growing range of Government targets on physical activity they are faced with.
Our high calibre children’s sports activity programmes also include services to boost and enhance local sports clubs and leagues. That is also something we would love to do more of.
Using our own initiative to get children active
One of the reasons for our success to date is that we have not just been waiting for other organisations to outsource children’s activity programmes to us. The Little Foxes Club is constantly innovating and delivering new initiatives to give children access to fitness, fun and friendship.
Foxes FC, our Girls Football teams, five-a-side league and Foxes FC Academy will continue to provide nurturing, safe and inclusive sports activities for children. We will also continue to welcome children of all abilities to our football squads and development programmes, Holiday Camps and other activity programmes in local communities.
Have you got more ideas for how we can help children to Get Active? Perhaps you would like to be a franchisee for The Little Foxes Club and deliver our highly-respected programmes in your area?
Contact us for a chat, and let’s Get Active together, to enable many more children to benefit from sports and physical activity in general.
