22 February 2005
VIDEO: School Sport Partnership

Gary Lineker tells BBC News how he is supporting The FA's programme to get more children involved in sport.

Supporting PE and Sport in Primary and Special schools remains a high priority for The FA and Walkers following the completion of the 3 year FA TOP Sport Football Programme.

In 2005 the FA and Walkers will invest further into an Out of Hours Learning programme to underpin The FA School Club Link programme and support School Sport Partnerships to use football to encourage more young people that are not yet participating to get involved in sport and hopefully be encouraged to move into the School Club Link programme.

The overall target is for 5,000 schools to benefit from the programme that will run until July 2006.

What will the Schools receive?

  • Each school will receive an equipment package consisting of 10 footballs, a set of markers, a pump, a set of bibs and a ball bag for £100 will be available to each school to support them to buy in coaches to assist in the delivery of the programme.
  • Each School will receive an FA OSHL football manual including OSHL football curriculum’s developed by practising teachers and an OSHL LEA officer.

How will the FA support coaches working on the programme?

  • The FA has developed and is due to pilot an OSHL training course for coaches.
  • The FA will nationally coordinate and run a minimum of 50 training courses to train 1,000 coaches per annum to support the programme.
  • Each school will receive The FA OSHL football manual.
  • The FA will support Partnerships to identify coaches and assist in making links to FitC schemes.

Monitoring and Evaluation

  • The Institute of Youth Sport will be used to undertake monitoring and evaluation of the programme.