Improved Activities Opportunity For Heathcote With London Sport Funding

Pupils at Heathcote School in Waltham Forest will have more opportunities to participate in new sporting activities this Olympic summer after nearly £10,000 of funding from London Sport.  

The school successfully applied for a grant from London Sport’s opening school facilities fund (click for more information) which aims to increase the number of opportunities for young people to be active. It is hoped that children in the area, inspired by events at Tokyo 2020, will be tempted to try new sports as well as enable the school to build stronger relationships within the local community.  

A heavily disrupted 2019-20 academic year saw just 41.9% of London’s children (Years 1-11) hit the recommended average of 60 minutes or more of activity every day, 4.2% lower than the year before. Data from Sport England has also demonstrated the significant impact of covid-19 on young people’s mental wellbeing with drops in confidence and competence when it comes to physical activity. 

To combat these trends, London Sport has invested nearly £800,000 of Department for Education funding in 23 boroughs to support 84 schools to open or reopen their facilities out of school hours. London Sport will also work with Heathcote School, and other funded schools, local providers, and National Governing Bodies, to ensure a varied, high-quality physical activity offer. 

School Business Manager at Heathcote School, Julie Vazquez, said: 

“This grant has enabled the school to improve the opportunities for pupils to participate in a wide range of sporting activities. Having additional sporting equipment will also help us to build collaborative relationships with local sports clubs.” 

Year 9 pupils, Abbie and Bernice, added: 

“It will help to improve our skills and access to sports which we currently can’t play and improve our mental health as it allows us to connect more with the outside world and people within the area.” 

Project Manager, Molly Adkin, said: 

“Unfortunately, London’s children remain less active than the national average so we know there’s lots of work to be done to ensure young people are finding fun, safe and accessible opportunities. 

“As such, this funding is pivotal in ensuring London’s young people are able to enjoy more physical activity which will have long-term physical, mental and social benefits. 

“This funding has been specifically targeted to areas where we expect it to have the greatest impact and we look forward to hearing more from schools on their progress over the coming months.”