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Disport Academy Mission
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Disport Academy has been established to provide opportunities for children and young people with disabilities to take part in sport, with the provision of specialist coaches and sessions tailored to the participants individual needs.
Our main objectives are:
- To work with a variety of organisations to widen the participation of children and young people with disabilities in sport, this would include the Voluntary Sector, Statutory and Private Sector.
- To provide opportunities for young people with disabilities to access training and work placements within the Academy, and encourage other sport related careers within the industry.
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Government 'u-turn' as £65m pledged for school sports
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Posted by Jason on Monday, March 07, 2011 (12:49:09) (111 reads)
BBC Education
The government has announced it is to spend £65million pounds to promote competitive sports in schools in England.
Ministers had previously said they wanted to scrap the £162m Schools Sports Partnership leading to protests from teachers and Olympic stars including Denise Lewis and Tom Daley.
To watch the video report click HERE
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Giving disabled people a sporting chance
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Posted by Jason on Monday, March 07, 2011 (12:47:11) (166 reads)
BBC News
As part of the Access All Areas series, the BBC's Jonathan Bell, a former soldier who was paralysed in a training accident, looks at the role sport can play in rehabilitating those who become disabled in adulthood.
Driving along the roads on my way back to Stoke Mandeville hospital after 15 years I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable, almost nervous. Back then I was taking part in the Inter-Spinal Unit Games at the hospital's Guttman centre.
I was near the end of what seemed like a very long hospital stay at Pinderfields hospital in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, about eight months of rehabilitation after an injury in the Army which had left me paralysed. I'd been training with my infantry regiment, in preparation for deployment to Bosnia. On a night patrol, a vehicle had driven through my foot patrol, injuring 15 soldiers. I had been chosen with others from my spinal unit to travel down to Stoke Mandeville and take part in a sports competition.
It seemed like a big deal - it was our first "outing" as newly rehabbed wheelchair users. It was also the first time that I'd seen so many other newly injured people competing in sports.
Lucky to be alive
I made it to the finals of the table tennis - I was up against Nessad Causevic, a Bosnian policeman paralysed by shrapnel in a rocket attack.
It was an exciting match. Very quickly, friendly banter was replaced by grim determination as we battled hard for each point. This was competitive sport and I lapped it up, eventually winning a very tight match.
Elsewhere in the stadium others were competing in their own disciplines.
Returning to the Guttman centre - now known as the Stoke Mandeville Stadium - once again and meeting Nessad, we reminisced and were able to talk about how sport helped redefine perceptions of ourselves.
Like me, Nessad felt lucky to be alive but had also struggled with becoming a wheelchair user. No longer tall and physically fit in the usual sense, we had to make sense of this and how we viewed our new physical selves. We did that with the help of sport.
Dot Tussler, a senior physiotherapist at the spinal unit at Stoke Mandeville, says the benefits of sport go well beyond the obvious health implications."Yes, it improves fitness and stamina, and helps develop better wheelchair skills, all of which are transferable to other areas of life."
But being involved in sports, she says, may also make you sharper and more confident and, if you can compete in sport, then you can compete elsewhere, or get a job.
"There's also an important social element to sport - responsibility to the team and meeting new people," she added.
'Common goal'
For today's injured soldiers there is more on offer. At the Ministry of Defence's rehabilitation centre at Headley Court, in Surrey, competitive sport plays a central role in rehab.
In 2008 a project called Battle Back was set up specifically to use sport and adventure training to help soldiers back to fitness and help improve their self-confidence, whatever their injuries."Soldiers are naturally competitive," said Warrant Officer Spencer Norman, from Battle Back. "They all want to beat the guy next to them."
The organisers of Battle Back have been quick to tap in to this competitive quality. They want to introduce soldiers to a range of sports, and those who demonstrate exceptional ability in particular sporting disciplines are introduced to disability sports organisations, always keen to spot new talent.
I met two soldiers who had lost limbs in Afghanistan, Sgt Duncan Slater, 31, and L/Cpl Tyler Christopher, 26. Both are double amputees as a result of bomb blasts and both are new members of the Great Britain sled hockey squad.
Duncan said: "When you're part of a team, whatever team, it's not about what body parts you're missing - it's about what you can bring to the team. There's a common goal - to win."
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Cameron orders rethink on school sports cuts
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Posted by Jason on Monday, March 07, 2011 (12:29:46) (119 reads)
BBC Politics
David Cameron has ordered a rethink on plans to cut funding for school sports in England after concern "at local level", Downing Street has said. Mr Cameron's spokesman said the PM had asked Education Secretary Michael Gove to look again at the money available. Mr Gove says the current system is mired in red tape and must change but Mr Cameron indicated a possible U-turn at prime minister's questions.
Labour said there had been a "grassroots revolt" against the plans.
In reply to a question from former sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe, Mr Cameron said he was "looking carefully" at the debate held in Parliament on Tuesday - where a host of Labour MPs raised concerns from constituents about the issue - and would make an announcement soon. Downing Street said later the decision to cut school sports funding had been revisited because "there is some recognition this is being raised at local level".
When asked about a timescale for a change in the policy, the spokesman said "they are looking at it now". It is thought that any decision will not be taken until local government funding settlements are finalised later this month.
'Change in tone'
The No 10 spokesman said there was widespread recognition that the schools sports partnership system - set up in 2000 - was overly bureaucratic and needed reform: "We are withdrawing the funding, that's gone, but we are looking at how best to support competitive sport in schools."
The Department of Education said it would be "redeploying" existing resources for schools sport and would say how it intended to allocate the money "in due course".
Shadow education secretary Andy Burnham welcomed what he said was "a huge change in tone" since Tuesday's debate about the future of the partnerships.
He and two other shadow cabinet ministers have written to Mr Gove to offer to work with him to help retain the existing structure of partnership managers, which co-ordinate efforts between schools, while accepting overall funding will have to be reduced given the tough financial climate.
Olympic legacy
"The response from so many credible voices from the world of sport speaks volumes about the great achievements of the partnerships," they wrote."We made a promise when we won the Olympics that we would inspire a generation of young people through sport. We believe this is a commitment beyond party politics and one that matters to parents and young people across every school in the country."
The rethink follows a growing backlash against the plans to end £162m in direct funding for the last government's sports and PE strategy.This includes money for the 450 school sports partnership schemes - joint initiatives between primary, secondary and specialist state schools designed to increase sporting opportunities for children.
More than 70 top British athletes, including Olympic heptathlon champion Denise Lewis and world diving champion Tom Daley, wrote to Mr Cameron saying the policy was "ill-conceived" and risked efforts to deliver a "genuine legacy" from the Olympics in terms of encouraging sports participation.
When first challenged on the issue last week, Mr Cameron suggested the partnerships had not succeeded in boosting participation in many sports, a comment Labour leader Ed Miliband said he would "live to regret".
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PE hell or PE heaven?
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Posted by Jason on Monday, March 07, 2011 (12:22:12) (135 reads)
BBC News
With funding changes to school sports planned, a shift to a more competitive ethos is mooted, but there is likely to be a bitter battle for the heart of PE. For many people PE encapsulates their unhappiest memories of school. They look back to blasted, windswept sports fields where shouting PE teachers in ill-fitting tracksuits marshalled unwilling pupils.
The classic fictional depiction is the 1969 film Kes, where Brian Glover's Mr Sugden takes part in a football match as both player and referee, awards himself a penalty and then remonstrates with Billy Casper by knocking him into the mud with a wet football. It has that classic breeding ground for school social stigma - the picking of teams. An opportunity to further make life miserable for the group memorably referred to as the "wets, weirdos and fatties" in the sitcom, Red Dwarf.
The popular perception is that something started to change in the culture of sports and physical education in schools in the 1970s. Activities that didn't alienate the unsporty started to chip away at the dominance of competitive team sport.
But now there is to be a shift back towards competitive sport. The government is ending the ring-fencing of £162m of funding for School Sport Partnerships, which promoted co-operation in sport and PE provision between schools, as well as inter-school competitions. Opponents say this will lead to money being used to plug gaps elsewhere in school budgets, but the government is instead focusing on its plans for Olympics-style competitions for schools.
But what everybody does agree on is the importance of PE. Adults may look back ruefully to being made to exercise in their underpants or do punishment laps of a field, but few would dispute the long-term benefits."Getting the regular habit of exercise ingrained controls weight later on in life," says Dr Andy Franklyn-Miller, a consultant in sports medicine.
This week his representative body, the British Association of Sport and Exercise Medicine, is to call for a health-focused segment to be incorporated into PE lessons.
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Olympic athlete Darren Campbell's plea to save sport funding
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Posted by Jason on Monday, March 07, 2011 (12:09:34) (156 reads)
BBC Politics
Olympic athlete Darren Campbell - who brought a gold medal back from the Athens games and a silver from Sydney - says the coalition government should re-think its plans to cut sport funding in English schools.
Teachers and athletes say the announced £162m cut threatens after-school clubs, and could reduce the number of sports coaches in schools.
To watch the video click HERE
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