The Youth Sport Trust, the national charity set up to build a brighter future for young people through sport has teamed up with Olympic heptathlete Denise Lewis to promote it’s Zoneparc playground programme.
Denise kicked off a series of workshops for teachers and midday supervisors at the City of Manchester stadium this week where representatives from schools across the area were able to try out new ways to use their specially designed Zoneparc playgrounds to inspire primary school children in their school to get active at break and lunchtimes.
Zoneparc is a playground development programme which has proven to increase children's level of physical activity and their enjoyment of the playground, and improves playground behaviour. There will be four roadshows across the UK by December bring the benefits of positive play to more children.
Denise said: “As a mother with two young children, I understand that for some children the playground can be a daunting place. Zoneparc has had some great successes in reducing common problems associated with playtimes as well as being an important step to help get all young people active. I’m really excited to meet the people that make this happen, and give them my support, hopefully inspiring them to continue this important work developing our young people.”
Evaluation by the Youth Sport Trust has found that, after the introduction of Zoneparc 76 per cent of children suggest they now feel happier at playtimes and 53 per cent now feel safer in the playground with school staff indicating that incidents of bad behaviour have decreased by 63 per cent amongst children aged 7 and 11 along with 89 per cent of schools reporting that the proportion of children who are active has increased in the same age group.
Youth Sport Trust Chief Executive; Steve Grainger said “Zoneparc is a great way to encourage children to be active from a young age and it’s great that Denise is on board to support our work.”
The Zoneparc programme has been funded by the Department for Children, School and Families and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Working in partnership with the LEAs and the School Sport Partnerships, there are 424 Zoneparc schools across England. Zoneparc playgrounds have activity areas which are colour coded for different types of activity. The Red Zone is a sports zone for small-sided court space, goals, or cricket trainer. The Blue Zone is the Action Zone with targets, hopscotch or skill snakes and the Yellow Zone is the Chill Out zone with benches with table top games.
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For more information please contact James Webb or Katie Smith, Youth Sport Trust Press Office, on 020 7278 7208 or by emailing james.webb@youthsporttrust.org or katie.smith@youthsporttrust.org
Notes to Editors:
The Youth Sport Trust
The Youth Sport Trust is a registered charity established in 1994 to build a brighter future for young people through sport. Its mission is to support the education and development of all young people through PE and Sport. For more information visit www.youthsporttrust.org
National School Sport Strategy
The Government’s National School Sport Strategy, jointly delivered through the Department for Children, School and Families and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, has a PSA target to increase the percentage of 5-16 year olds who do a minimum of two hours quality school sport a week to 85 per cent by 2008. The percentage of young people hitting the two hours for 2006 was 80 per cent, beating the set target of 75 per cent for the year. The Government’s long-term aim is to offer all children four hours of sport by 2010 through a combination of sport provision in the curriculum and out of school and community activities.