London 2012 have been celebrating the fact that there is now just 1000 days to go until the start of the 2012 Olympics. They’ve been asking on twitter and their website what people want to achieve in the next 1000 days.
For us, we’ve got a number of roles to play in staging the Olympics, and we’re involved in quite a few projects which have London 2012 as the catalyst.
While it is great to help athletes in their quest for success over the next 1000 days, we also want the sector as a whole to be a success in line with our vision: More People, Better Skilled, Better Qualified. Some of the other projects we’re involved with will certainly help us in meeting that challenge.
With the news that more than five million people are currently participating in London 2012 Games-related projects, initiatives such as Personal Best certainly help get more people better skilled and better qualified.
Personal Best is the national pre-employment training programme, which uses the prospect of being a volunteer at London 2012 to engage workless and socially excluded people with education and help them gain skills, lift their aspirations and open up new life and career opportunities.
Recruit into Coaching is another project we’re involved in which will provide more people, better skilled and better qualified. We aid Sport England in delivering the Recruit into Coaching programme, which aims to recruit, train and deploy 10,000 new volunteers by 2011, greatly increasing our volunteer coaching workforce and directly increasing the sporting activity in both school and community settings.
Sport England have recently produced the following case study looking at the impact of the programme on participants and how these coaches can then go on to help others through sport.
In a previous post I wrote about concerns I had regarding the impact of the changes brought about by the introduction of the Childcare Act 2006, and specifically about the impact that the changes in qualification requirements would have on holiday playschemes. We have been carrying out an online survey to find out the effect on employers and children, and the results do not paint a happy picture!
The Childcare Act requires that 50% of staff working under a level 3 qualified manager/supervisor must have a relevant level 2 qualification, and essentially there is not enough qualified staff to go around. 37 of the 49 settings who responded to our survey said they had had to reconsider their plans for holiday play schemes. 6 settings had decided to exclude under 6’s, and a further 13 were considering it. While it is always dangerous to extrapolate, if this percentage is accurate across England, then 12% of holiday playschemes will have excluded under 6’s, and 26% have considered it, and may in fact have done so since filling in the survey – which started at the end of May!
Other ‘solutions’ that settings have put in place include offering activity based provision so that they are exempt from the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). Responses indicate that 2 employers have done this and a further 6 were considering it; others are using qualified staff to work with younger children and unqualified staff to work with older ones. I do not feel this adds up to offering quality playwork, but I suspect also that a huge number of dedicated playworkers have been putting in a lot of unpaid hours and working below minimum wage in order to run summer schemes. This is not a recipe for a sustainable, professional sector.
The number of children affected is equally disturbing. It is estimated that 7500 children would be affected as a result of changed plans and a further 4300 if settings considering different options took these forward.
At SkillsActive we are working DCSF officials for acceptance of the new level 2 Award in Playwork. This qualification takes a similar amount of time to complete as training based on the induction standard. This will be practical for University students who make up the bulk of the summer playscheme workforce and an accessible solution for employers needing to recruit and qualify temporary staff for holiday provision.
Today is the 6th anniversary of our 5 year SSC Licence, presented by Charles Clarke (Secretary of State, DFES) on this day in 2003 – as only the 4th Sector Skills Council to be licensed.
Even more importantly, today Lord Mandelson (Secretary of State, BIS) has announced our new licence as the SSC for Active Leisure and Learning. This is something of a coincidence – but at least we will be able to remember the date!
We are proud of our achievements to date, and delighted that the comprehensive relicensing assessment recognised the expertise that we bring to the sector.
All of these are part of our vision, aspirations and ambitions for developing and up-skilling the workforce over the next 5 years – so the challenge is now to continue with our mission.
There’s no denying that we’re going through a very difficult period. As the recession continues, the job market continues to look bleak across the whole of industry. Over the past few months the media has focused on graduates who have left university and are simply boosting the unemployment figures, instead of starting their career.
Despite this reality, our industry has remained somewhat buoyant, the growth has slowed down, yet we continue to see a rise in opportunities. To this end, there has never been a better time to attract people to start a career within health and fitness.
Our Sector Skills Agreement research has shown that there is a lack of people with higher level skills in management and leadership attracted to the industry, and yet according to national statistics, there are unemployed graduates; so I have to ask the question, are we doing enough to attract the right people?
Employers repeatedly tell me that expectation is often a barrier to attracting graduates into the industry. They have the skills required and yet don’t expect to learn the business by working on the front desk or cleaning the bathrooms.
This may have been the case five years ago; however the rise in vocationally-based qualifications, placement work experience, and part-time jobs have given graduates a realistic picture of the industry, so expectation can no longer be a significant barrier.
According to the FIA State of the Industry Report, in 2009 the industry’s total revenue was up to almost £4billion – an all time high. This places a greater emphasis on the workforce, and ensuring that we have the right people with the right skills to support this growth. Positively, our recently launched 2009 Working in Fitness Survey results show that health and fitness continues to be a popular industry to work in – once you’re working in it – and respondents were keen to progress their career within the industry.
This is great news for an industry with historically reported retention challenges. So what can we do to tackle the recruitment challenges?
My advice, let’s utilise the current climate and find a way to attract more people who are highly qualified, with the skills we need for the continual development and success of the industry. It’s well publicised that graduates are out there looking to start their careers – let’s help them.
Tonight the NBA comes to London with the O2 Arena hosting an exhibition match between the Chicago Bulls and Utah Jazz.
Amongst those taking part is British basketball star Luol Deng, who has admitted he is relishing the opportunity to play on home soil. The 24-year-old started his basketball career in Brixton as a nine year old before moving to America to play high school basketball and being drafted in by the Chicago Bulls.
While returning to your home town having become a star overseas may be a fairy story for some, the opportunities for the further development of British basketball stars are improving, and young talent won’t have to move abroad to gain access to top quality coaching while studying.
Last week English Basketball celebrated the launch of the Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (AASE) for Basketball following a year long trial. The AASE programme combines high calibre coaching for top athletes while they continue their education, meaning that those who don’t manage to make the grade at the highest level still have qualifications to fall back on.
Back in February we visited one of the pilot projects at Southend College, as part of our filming for the AASE celebration events, and as we recently mentioned they have also hosted cameras for the Extra Time programme on Sky Sports. The show provides a good background to the growth of basketball in this country, and how AASE will help our young athletes further. You can view the programme below:
If you want to find out more about AASE, check out the pages over on our website: www.skillsactive.com/AASE
SkillsActive is the Sector Skills Council for Active Leisure and Learning. Directed by employers, SkillsActive leads the skills and productivity drive across sport and recreation, health and fitness, outdoors, playwork and caravan industries.
Here you can find out about some of the work and initiatives that we are undertaking across these sectors.
Find out more about SkillsActive, and our work, over here on our main site.
There’s no denying that we’re going through a very difficult period. As the recession continues, the job market continues to look bleak across the whole of industry. Over the past few months the media has focused on graduates who have left university and are simply boosting the unemployment figures, instead of starting their career.
