THE Scottish executive’s commitment to a national programme of sports co-ordinators was restated by the deputy minister for culture and sport, on Monday at Leith Academy, Edinburgh.
Rhona Brankin hoped the scheme would extend to all secondaries over the next four years and re-emphasised it was only part of the strategy to boost school sport.
Edinburgh, Angus, Highland, North Lanarkshire and Perth and Kinross have committed all their secondaries to the co-ordinator programme, meeting half the cost. Around pound;6 million will come from the lottery over the next four years.
Staff, mainly PE teachers, will co-ordinate, manage and develop extracurricular sport for a day a week. They will recruit and support adults to work with pupils.
Lesley Mitchell, co-ordinator at Arbroath Academy, told the Livingston conference that vandalism and ill-discipline had been reduced since the scheme began.
Four clubs and 40 pupils had been involved in extracurricular sport out of a roll of 650. Now more than 200 pupils took part in nine clubs and 22 different activities. Ten teachers and five parents have coaching certificates and take the clubs.
