What is Sporting Champions?
Sporting Champions inspires young people by giving them the chance to meet their sporting heroes face-to-face. The scheme organises around 450 visits each year, bringing world-class athletes into schools and local communities throughout the country. Funded by Sport England, the programme is an important strand of the national strategy for school sport - PESSCL. Through their work, Sporting Champions hope to encourage youngsters to be more active so they can live up to their potential in sport and in every other part of their lives.
What Sporting Champions Do
Their main goal is to show young people sport can and should be fun - they want to sow the seeds that will start a lifelong enjoyment of physical activity. It has been found that children get the best out of the events when they have real interaction with the Champion - things like question and answer sessions, sporting demonstrations and coaching workshops work well. For this reason, they don't really go in for formal ceremonies, photo calls or cutting ribbons. Instead, the emphasis during visits is always on getting involved, having fun and sticking with it.
Why Sporting Champions?
The Sporting Champions scheme is a unique initiative that is helping to create a new generation of physically active people in communities and schools up and down the country. By using athletes from a wide range of sports, they are reaching more young people and inspiring them to take part in sports on a regular basis.
In order to receive a visit code, you must have been nominated by your County Sport Partnership or School Sport Partnership.
In terms of benefits, a Sporting Champions visit will:
- Raise awareness of sport and the benefits of physical activity
- Engage and enthuse young people
- Increase the profile of a variety of sports and local sports clubs
- Improve behaviour in the local community
- Motivate young people in their wider lives
- Raise the profile of a particular event
Arranging a Visit
The process varies depending on whether you're a school or a local community organisation. Sporting Champions allocate a number of visits to School Sports Partnerships and County Sports Partnerships and then ask them to identify suitable events and activities for Sporting Champions to attend in their local area.
If you're a school, the first thing to find out is if you're a member of a School Sports Partnership (SSP) you'll then need to contact your Partnership Development Manager.
If you're a community group, you should contact our Sporting Champions Coordinator (rwalker@myerscough.ac.uk) at Lancashire Sport Partnership.
In order to receive a visit code, you must have been nominated by your County Sport Partnership or School Sport Partnership through our online nomination page.
Information you will be asked for will be...
- The event date, timings and location
- A brief summary of the event
- The event format and role of the Champion
- The number of people attending
- Invited guests / media
- Champion requirements including dress code and equipment
Obviously demand is high for visits from Sporting Champions and we're unable to meet all requests so visits are allocated rather than applied for.
National Framework
Sporting Champions is working in partnership with existing athlete programmes to provide a clear national framework of all athlete role model projects which are widening accessibility to world-class athletes. Their commitment is to ensure that the services provided by the scheme, and other programmes alike, are mapped to avoid duplication and ensure they work to complement one another's delivery, sharing in good practice.