Highland Active Schools Project Secured For Further Four Years

15th November 2010

Continued funding support for a project in the Highlands that aims to keep young people healthy and active has received an extremely warm welcome from members of The Highland Council�s Education, Culture and Sport Committee.

The offer of �922,400 per annum until March 2015 has been made from sportscotland to enable The Highland Council to continue providing an Active School�s network which employs 40 Active School Co-ordinators (31.2 FTE posts) throughout the Highlands.

Members of the Education, Culture and Sport Committee unanimously agreed to accept the offer of the continued grant aid from sportscotland which will be matched by �237,057 funding from the Council per annum for four years.

Active School�s Coordinators organise a wide range of physical activity opportunities for young people throughout Scotland, many targeted at otherwise hard to reach groups. In statistical terms, the previous 3 academic years of Active Schools (July 2007 to June 2010) in the Highlands has provided:

* 66,499 activity sessions (43,074 primary age; 23,425 secondary age) resulting in:

* 1,268,721 participants (822,608 primary age; 446,113 secondary age);

* up to 2,065 different individual volunteers involved in supporting activities each term;

* up to 45 different types of activity provided each term; and

* up to 156 community sports clubs supporting activity each term.

Councillor Bill Fernie, Chairman of The Highland Council�s Education, Culture and Sport Committee said: �This is excellent news for the Highlands. We are second only to Glasgow in receipt of the amount of sportscotland funding for Active Schools which reinforces their understanding of the importance of delivery of sports activities in rural areas of Scotland and particularly in an area like Highland with our greatly dispersed population. Another four years of funding is a great boost to ensuring our young people are active particularly in these difficult financial times."

�We are very grateful to sportscotland for enabling us to continue this vital work in improving the healthy lifestyles of our young people in the Highlands. Never before have we had such an effective method of attracting youngsters into active exercise with the support of so many volunteers for after school activities.�