3 Year Community Project Smashes Targets

Our Monday evening community football session at Coloma School, funded by the Sporteducate programme, provides the opportunity for young people from a variety of backgrounds, cultures and abilities to gain access to high quality football coaching and educational support, free of charge. Sporteducate - Inspiring the next generation from Sported on Vimeo.The project has been running for 3 years and we have managed to engage with over 120 young people combining educational and sport sessions.In 2016/17, on the back of our successful football project, we were granted funding to do the same for netball at Thornton Heath Netball Club.Our main goals are to inspire young people to have greater aspirations for the future whilst improving their attitudes to learning, their academic performance and career paths later in life. After analysing the data, we are thrilled with the impact that participants believe the sessions have had on their attitudes and aspirations. 80% of participants reported that they had a good idea of the job they wanted in the future, compared to 51% at the start of the project. In addition, 75% of participants reported that they were more engaged at school in contrast to 44% at the start of the 3 years.We are pleased to have met and exceeded so many of our targets with this project and are in the planning process of how we can further improve the effectiveness of this session for the long term and further improve the attitudes and aspirations of the young people we work with. A huge congratulations to all young people and staff for their dedication to the project.We are actively looking to secure more funding for this session in the future to help impact the lives of more young people in Croydon.