Aston Ward

(September 2006 – April 2007)

At the beginning of the school year 2006, Local Leagues received funding to increase sports participation and healthy lifestyles in the Aston area. A demand had been identified in Aston for more extra-curricular sporting activities, particularly in trying to increase female participation in sports.
Tag rugby had already been introduced into one school and Local Leagues hoped to build on this and increase the amount of rugby played within the Aston area.
This was an opportunity to form relationships and partnerships with existing organisations working in Aston with a view of working together to increase sports participation throughout Aston.

During the above period we exceeded our aims and the demand for continued activity in Aston from Local Leagues continued to increase.
Sports Sessions

In September 2006, we had a presence in 3 schools within the Aston area. These were:

• Birchfield Community School where we ran netball, tag rugby after-school clubs and supported curriculum physical education by teaching tag rugby to different year groups. The netball club was for girls only and had a regular attendance of 22 girls;
  
• Prince Albert School where we ran a girls-only multi-sports club and had 10 girls regularly participating; and
  
• Aston Tower where we ran an after-school club which had 5 girls in attendance.

We contacted many schools in Aston offering them free sports clubs, particularly for girls. We had received a very good response and by October, had clubs running in 3 additional schools. These were a girl’s tag rugby lunch club in Lozells Junior & Infant School; a girl’s netball after-school club and a girl’s tag rugby lunch club in Mansfield Green; and a mixed football club at Canterbury Cross primary school.
By the end of the first half term, we had increased participation from 32 girls regularly participating in sports to 55 girls with 4 rugby sessions taking place.

These clubs continued throughout the rest of the autumn term and into the winter term. Numbers remained constant and Local Leagues continued to provide quality coaching in schools that would not usually receive a high standard of sports.

During the February half-term, Local Leagues worked with 2 other organisations to deliver a half-term sports club in Aston. Through the success of this club, the demand for activities within schools increased. Yew Tree primary school requested a girls multi-sports lunch club and a cricket lunch club. Sacred Heart began to attend the Birchfield netball club, and numbers increased in all Birchfield activities. Lozells and Birchfield requested basketball sessions and Birchfield also requested cricket sessions during lunch time.

By April 2007, we had 15 sessions within the Aston area per week with approximately 190 girls participating each week in Local Leagues activities. As well as the school based activities, we had also started a Saturday morning netball club in conjunction with Aston Sports Club.