Sports Activities

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Local Leagues has a pool of qualified sports coaches who provide sports activities to children in some of the most deprived areas of Birmingham and indeed nationally (including Balsall Heath, Nechells, Small Heath, Sparkbrook, Sparkhill and Washward Heath). These coaches provide a wide range of different opportunities for children and young people aged between 7 and 18.

We encourage participation in sport and emphasise the health and well-being benefits of paricipating in sport through organising after-school sports activities within Primary Schools, led by Volunteers, Sports Assistants or employed Sports Coaches. Through providing these activities within school facilities there are fewer barriers to participation as activities take place in 'familiar grounds', thus enabling us to provide positive experiences within sports at an early age whilst also utilising facilities that are otherwise dormant ‘out of hours’. In some cases, this also addresses the otherwise lack of facilities available in the area.

Our Sports Assistants provide enhanced sporting experiences within schools through supporting teachers in PE sessions whilst utilising their own gained experiences and skills, and are increasingly being asked for greater involvement in terms of planning and delivering of these sessions.

To achieve the aims of Local Leagues we provide a range of sports activities within community spaces such as local parks, youth centres, and leisure centres. The utilisation of these public spaces provides children and young people with the opportunity to participate in additional sports activities within their local communities, removing the need to travel far from home. Again, this addresses the use of existing facilities which presently are not seeing the best structured use possible.

As the name suggest, Local Leagues provides participants with the chance to join local teams and compete in leagues. We currently organise a range of different football leagues including a schools leagues and others within the community setting. Children and young people are also able to compete in team events and tournaments that we organise on an annual basis. These include:

• Cricket - Sparkhill Park
• Football - Calthorpe Park
• Football - Farm Park
• Football - Small Heath
• Playstation - Sparkbrook
• School's FootBULL - The University of Birmingham

Local Leagues also arranges a number of different recreational activities including go-carting and visits to Premiership football matches, skiing, quad-biking, and even residential trips, which provide young people with a range of new experiences.

We continue providing sporting activities throughout school holidays with the sole aim of having sustained activities for children and young people, whilst keeping them healthy and making best use of their energies.  Activities are planned for all half-term and end of term breaks, with ‘Summer Activities’ planned for the summer holidays during which time many sporting activities are offered as well as the opportunities for children to take part in tournaments etc.  A bus service is also provided between venues during these activities as we run these schemes at a number of venues and view all venues to be accessible by all participants.

Importance

The sporting and recreational activities provided by Local Leagues are something that is nowadays often missing in many inner city children’s lives. Local Leagues activities give young people opportunities to participate in regular sports activities so they do not spend their leisure time just watching television, playing computer games, or participating in anti-social behaviour. Our aim is to provide supervised and structured sporting and recreational activities through which the young can channel their raw energies into something positive and beneficial to them, and this is achieved by working closely with schools, local authorities and other statutory and voluntary agencies. We hope that this intervention helps towards increasing citizenship skills, social integration, academic achievement and benefiting the health and well-being of young people, as well as contributing towards decreasing levels of crime and vandalism. The current demand received by Local Leagues for our training sessions, leagues and tournaments demonstrates that the lack of supervised sport and recreational activities in the lives of inner city children’s is a fact that is being forced upon them and is not due to a lack of interest.