Active Schools continues to benefit Aberdeenshire area
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The latest data published by Sportscotland shows that 207,044 visits were made to Active Schools sessions in the Aberdeenshire Council area during the last academic year.
During this time a total of 9877 children and young people took part in Active Schools sessions in the region, where they were given access to an extensive range of activities.
The number of people delivering sessions across the country has also increased by 3.3 per cent over the past year. In the Aberdeenshire area, 94 per cent of the 948 deliverers were volunteers.
Mel Young, chairman of Sportscotland, said: “It is fantastic to see that Active Schools continues to grow year on year with more opportunities delivered and another increase in the number of people participating.
"Our mission is to help the people of Scotland get the most out of the sporting system at every level and Active Schools has a crucial role to play in engaging young people in sport and physical activity.
“We talk about making an impact together and Active Schools is a great example of working with the right partners in the right way to deliver results.
"The Active Schools network is reliant on strong local partnerships with schools, local authorities, sport development teams, regional managers from governing bodies of sport, volunteers and the clubs who welcome children and young people into their communities.”
Active Schools, one of Sportscotland’s longest running flagship programmes, is designed to provide more and higher quality opportunities to take part in sport and physical activity before school, during lunch time and after school.
Developing effective pathways between schools and sports clubs in the local community is a key factor in its success and there are now 2700 clubs linking directly with schools giving children and young people the opportunity to continue in sports to the level they choose.
Delivered in partnership with all 32 local authorities and their leisure trusts in primary, secondary and ASN schools, Active Schools is now a well-established network of more than 400 managers and coordinators and makes a significant contribution to delivering an active Scotland.
Chairman of Live Life Aberdeenshire's culture and sport sub-committee, David Cook, welcomed the figures for 2018/19 and said: “We take great pride in our Active Schools service, in the amount of opportunities it creates for young people to be active, as well as the pathways created into community sports clubs.
"Active Schools relies heavily on volunteers and we have to thank the 895 people who helped deliver activities across Aberdeenshire last year, a number higher than the national average.
“There has also been an increase in the number of club-to-school links in 2018-19, giving young people further opportunity to continue being physically active in the community.
"Aberdeenshire Active Schools contributes greatly to our local sport and physical activity and health and wellbeing agendas – by starting young, we hope our children will continue to be active in later life and benefit from that.”
