Get Active United: Guyra-Armidale-Uralla youth sport and physical activity program

Over the last few years, several natural disasters (drought, bushfire, mouse plague, floods) and Covid-19 have impacted upon children and youth in the Armidale and Uralla LGAs. Directly affected or cut off from other communities as a result, community networks, school connections, mental health and wellbeing have been disrupted, whilst resilience has been tested. These events aside, children from low socioeconomic, newly-arrived migrant and refugee, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds and/or living with a disability already face more barriers to participation in community life. This is particularly the case for organised sport and physical activity due to their high costs amidst increasing living expenses across Australia. Get Active United (GAU) will provide targeted opportunities for Primary-aged students (5-12 years old) from select NSW Department of Education Primary and Central schools in Guyra, Armidale and Uralla to participate in extracurricular, curriculum-based physical activities during Term 3 2022-Term 2 2023. This list of schools from the Armidale Regional Council and Uralla Shire Council include: Minimbah Primary School, Newling Public School, Drummond Memorial Public School, Black Mountain Public School, Guyra Central School, Uralla Central School, Sandon Public School, Bald Blair Public School, Rocky River Public School, Armidale City Public School, Ben Venue Public School. These schools have an ICSEA below 1000 and in Australia’s bottom 50%, more than 25% of students in the bottom socioeconomic quartile and high Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and/or Language Background other than English enrolments.

This curriculum-driven program has targeted 4 core activities that enhance wellbeing, resilience and have therapeutic benefit whilst simultaneously supporting Health and Physical Education (HPE) syllabus learning - swimming lessons, Football United Positive Youth Development soccer clinics, sensory gym programs including Kindergym and Armidale Sport and Recreation. In total, at least 700 children are projected to have access to opportunities under the proposed budget. Providers only offer most programs (first three) weekly in alignment with school Terms and they support key contexts for Physical Education (PE) learning including: aquatics, Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS), rhythmic and expressive movement, team physical activities, safety and health benefits of physical activity. These areas of learning promote key movement, self-management (confidence, perseverance and resilience) and interpersonal (communication and teamwork) skills (NESA, 2018). FMS are the building blocks of human movement and critical to develop in Primary school as they have implications for developing not only gross motor skills that support lifelong physical activity and access to a host of physical and mental wellbeing benefits, but also fine motor skills needed for classroom learning and independence (e.g. holding pencil, using scissors, tying shoelaces)(Dudley et al., 2021; Miller et al, 2022). Further, these activities have been chosen as SportAus (2022) AusPlay data indicates that swimming, football/soccer and gymnastics comprise the top 3 organised, out of school sport and physical activity options for children 0-14 years. Swimming lessons in particular have inherent safety benefit for lifelong wellbeing and full participation in Australian culture through the benefits to social and cultural capital it brings.

PE learning and NSW DoE swim schools were casualties 2020-21 through lockdowns, learning from home periods and closure of sporting venues. Accordingly, many Australian children have lost valuable learning, wellness and personal development time. All activities focus on participatory, skill development, wellbeing and socialisation elements without being formally competitive. This has been planned to be inclusive and offer something for everyone, particularly children who may be shy or lack confidence and prior experience with community sport activities due to their demographic circumstances, recent natural disasters or the pandemic inhibiting access.

Beyond Blue (2017) reinforce that physical activity creates opportunities for personal challenge and taking healthy risk-taking that supports the development of resilience and mental wellbeing among 0-12 years olds. Resilience interventions best comprise individual and group modes of delivery with content that includes social skills and building relationships; problem-solving and decision making; and stress management/relaxation. The aforementioned activities meet several of these criteria. There are strong relationships between sports participation in childhood and lower lifetime mental illness, due to an array of benefits including friendship opportunities, enhanced mental wellbeing and resilience, alongside access to role models (Hughes et al., 2018). Particularly, sports participation has been identified as a key resilience factors for young people who have had numerous adverse childhood experiences (Norris & Norris, 2021). Beyond Blue (2017) also note the benefit of free play to complement other more structured and goal-oriented approaches. Hence, the inclusion of a ‘free play’ and social opportunity at Armidale Sport and Recreation to conclude each Term and the structured, curriculum-based programs (swimming, soccer, Kindergym) that precede them.

Three aforementioned activities (swimming lessons, sensory gym/Kindergym, Armidale Sport and Recreation) will run across the four 2022-2023 school terms, whilst the Football United soccer clinics will run for 2 Terms (Term 4, 2022 and Term 1, 2023). These summer Terms are outside of community club soccer season so will reduce the potential of a clash in order to seek maximised uptake in participation. The project leads have existing partnerships with 3/4 providers due to prior community-based sport and physical activity projects. As such, staff have a solid system in place in identifying enrolments funded through grant funding and invoicing O’Neill and Baker via UNE accordingly with provision of participation data to support monitoring and evaluation.
To maximise opportunity for as many student’s as possible from the aforementioned schools to participate, priority will be given new enrolments for swimming, soccer and gymnastics each Term. Any returnees will be placed on a waitlist by the providers and only enrolled if there has been insufficient uptake by new participants and places remain. Furthermore, a ‘bring a sibling’ model will be used as an inclusive measure to encourage uptake of families and incentivise parent/carers to bring the school child along as fiscally and time-wise, this is more likely to appeal to families with multiple children. The Armidale Multicultural Community Development (MCDT) team network, local Principals and teachers will be vital assisting with the promotion of activities via word of mouth, flyers in newsletters, emails or school websites.

References:
Beyond Blue Ltd. (2017). Building resilience in children aged 0–12: A practice guide. https://www.beyondblue.org.au/docs/default-source/resources/bl1810-building-resilience-in-children-aged-0-12-booklet_acc.pdf?sfvrsn=901946eb_2

Dudley, D., Telford, A., Peralta, L., Stonehouse, C., & Winslade, M. (2021). Chapter 9: Planning for developmentally appropriate learning. In Teaching quality health & physical education (2nd ed., pp. 255-291). Cengage.

Hughes, K., Ford, K., Davies, A. R., Homolova, L., and Bellis, M. A. (2018). Sources of resilience and their moderating relationships with harms from adverse childhood experiences. Public Health Wales, Wrexham, Wales.

Miller, J., Wilson-Gahan, S., Garrett, R., & Haynes, J. (2022). Health and Physical Education: Preparing educators for the future [4th edition]. Cambridge University Press.

Norris, G., & Norris, H. (2021). Building Resilience Through Sport in Young People With Adverse Childhood Experiences. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 3.

NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA). (2018). Personal Development, Health & Physical Education K-10 syllabus. https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-areas/pdhpe/pdhpe-k-10-2018

SportAus. (2022). The sport and physical activity landscape. https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiZjJkNzA5MmEtZTJmNy00NGRjLWJiNWUtNTljNTVhYmU2MGZlIiwidCI6IjhkMmUwZjRjLTU1ZjItNGNiMS04ZWU3LWRhNWRkM2ZmMzYwMCJ9

Funder: Department of Regional NSW
Award Value: $49,884