When thinking about sport, we tend to draw a lot of our understanding from professional coaches, athletes and teams. However, we must remember that if we want to make positive changes and create sporting habits for life then what we do at a grassroots level, within the community, is immensely important.
Sport development looks at how we can engage with different communities to support their sporting access, and how a number of different organisation work together in order to create sporting opportunities for all.
At Manchester Metropolitan University we will get you to engage with sport development in many ways – students (i) research, design and implement projects that specifically target physical activity, sport and health within different population groups; (ii) they look at the main providers of sport, both in the UK and internationally, examining their policies and programmes; and (iii) evaluate the effectiveness of sporting interventions in achieving their overall aims and objectives.
Topics may include: the evolution of sport development, ethics in sport development, social issues around sport participation and the role of national and local agencies in the sport development process.
CLICK on the image on the right to watch a video on the benefits of sport in our society.
CLICK on the image on the left to watch a story of sport development in football.
Development Snapshot
CLICK on the image to watch Rob Jones, Rugby Development Officer for Manchester Met Sport takes us through a development project that’s creating global opportunities within Rugby Union Sevens.
Watch: Podcast
MMU Sport
Listen to Episode 10 of the MMU Sport Podcasts, where Fiona interviews Gareth Smith and Rob Jones about their journey into coaching and sport development.
Read: Sports Strategies
Governing Bodies for grassroots sport are very familiar with Sport England’s mission, strategy and campaigns. Their new strategy: Uniting the Movement, released in January 2021 will be crucial to the future of grassroot sport and physical activity in England for the next ten years. They have identified five key areas (big issues) for development:
- Recover and reinvent: get people moving again post-COVID, and create a sustainable network of organisations that provide sport and physical activity opportunities for different people
- Connecting communities: focusing on sport and physical activity’s ability to bring people together
- Positive experiences for children and young people: creating opportunities for long and healthy lives
- Connecting with health and wellbeing: strengthening connections between physical and mental health
- Active environments: creating and protecting sport and physical activity spaces
Stop and Reflect: It is important for you to think about how sport and physical activity can achieve these aims and objectives at a local level….
Go to your local sporting Active Partnership website (search feature HERE). Click on the links to find out more information, identify what programmes, initiatives and campaigns are available to support the development of physical activity, sport, health and fitness of your local communities. Complete the below table with your findings.
