More pupils take chance to be Active

North Lanarkshire Council ran 397,350 sessions in the last year, as 22,567 individual children and young people took part in a range of sports and physical activities .

sportscotland chairman Mel Young said: “It’s really encouraging to see the continued growth in participation in Active Schools activities across the country.

“The success of Active Schools is the result of strong local partnerships between Active Schools teams, school staff, sports development teams in local authorities, regional managers from the governing bodies, and local sports clubs.

“By working together, we can deliver more and better opportunities for young people of all abilities to take part in sport.”

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 lunchtime and after school.

Developing effective pathways between schools and local sports clubs is also a priority and this year 2336 examples of links have been recorded in North Lanarkshire including extracurricular links and holiday programmes.

Isabelle Boyd, the council’s assistant chief executive (Education, Youth and Communities), said: “Our Active Schools Programme is a real success story and has transformed the way young people engage with sport and physical activity.

“Activities take place in both school and community settings to help encourage children and young people to become more active by offering a wide range of sports and activities, to ensure they get the chance to try out something new.

“We provide children with these opportunities by working with schools and thanks to the invaluable support we receive from our volunteers.”

A survey of over 4000 school pupils showed 98 per cent of Active Schools participants feel healthier thanks to their involvement, while 94 per cent are motivated to be more active in the future and 92 per cent felt more confident.