How to become an Olympian

As the thrills of the 2012 London Olympic Games still linger in our minds and the excitement of the Paralympics beckons us on to hours more TV viewing, it is worthwhile reminding ourselves of a few facts about the most watched public event in the world.

For a start, the Modern Olympics have very little to do with Ancient Greece.  They were actually the idea of a French aristocrat who was inspired by the ethos of the English Public School sports of the Victoria era.  Baron Pierre de Coubertin looked to the ‘muscular Christianity’ of Rugby and other Public Schools, and concluded that, “organised sport can create moral and social strength”.  The youth of France – indeed the whole world – urgently needed some of this strong medicine, and so he travelled the world gathering support for his vision.  De Coubertin called this the ‘Olympic’ idea because he believed that it was the Ancient Greeks who have first developed the core philosophy.

The Baron’s vision was that the Games competition would be only one of a series of activities that take place during the Olympic year.  The ‘Cultural Olympiad’ was a marriage of sport and the arts, and included music, dance, visual arts and other wholesome activities.  This broader conception of the Olympics continues to exist, despite an almost total lack of interest from the national media … or anyone else.

__________________________________________________

Quick Quiz: Which of the following activities have appeared in the Modern Olympic Games?*

Cricket                                      Solo synchronised swimming

Pistol Dueling                           Long Jump for horses

Sculpture                                  Literature

Singing                                     Tug of War

* Answers are given at the end of this blog

__________________________________________________

Finally, and most importantly for our purposes, the elite sport aspect of the Olympics is just the outward expression of philosophy of life called Olympism.  This philosophy is built on three core values – excellence, friendship and respect – and aims to use the Olympic activities to inspire education and development in all people around the world.  De Coubertin wrote:

“Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of a good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.”

Ultimately, then, the razzamatazz of two weeks in the summer are just the tip of the iceberg.  The Olympics are a metaphor for something much bigger and more important, namely the potential of sport and the arts as vehicles for the realisation of human excellence.  And excellence can take different forms.  As we all know, it can refer to successful performance in high-level competitions.  What educationalists might call this the ‘summative’ view!  However, as we all know, it’s the ‘formative’ that makes the real difference in the long term.  This second form translates as personal excellence, and refers to on-going achievement against personal goals throughout one’s life.

It seems to me that, in launching the Olympics on the world, De Coubertin was offering a powerful metaphor for personal excellence.  The champions have their day, and in doing so, elite sport represents a laboratory for the rest of us.  We can see before our eyes the effects of someone pursuing excellence.  We can learn from their successes and challenges.

Fascinatingly, recent research seems to support this position: there is a great of similarity between the processes used by elite sports people in preparing for the Olympics and those used by the rest of us trying to improve in our own terms.  At least, this is the view of Professor David Collins, from the University of Central Lancashire.  Prof. Collins is a ‘Performance Psychologist’ and was National Coach for Athletics at the Beijing Olympics.  His research suggests that there are ‘champion behaviours’ that can be learnt by children (and by anyone else).  Starting with explicit teaching and reinforcement from others, eventually children learn to take responsibility for setting and monitoring their own personal development.

According Collins and his colleagues, champion behaviours include the following:

Goal setting - establishing specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-targeted goals.

Performance evaluation – regularly assessing your performance against your goals.

Imagery – going through an event or activity in your mind, using all of your senses, including sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and movement to recreate performance.

Planning – articulating the steps necessary for on-going improvement.

Commitment and role clarity  - learning to understand and accept your responsibilities with the group.

Focus and distraction control – remaining focused, despite pressure or failure.

Evaluating and coping with pressure – managing stress and learning to use it for positive purposes.

They have found that each of these behaviours can be learned, and they go further.  They argue that all children should be taught the skills, so that all of them have at the skills and behaviours of champions at their disposal.  Then, if they choose to aspire to excellence, they will have the psychological foundations necessary.

The most fundamental requirement of any attempt to develop excellence is the simplest: practice.  Forbes magazine summarized the view of many researchers like this:

“The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what the researchers call ‘deliberate practice’.  It's activity that's explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one's level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition.”

It is quite easy to find support for this view among those who have excelled in their work.  For example, here is the actor Will Smith:

“I’ve never really viewed myself as particularly talented.  I’ve viewed myself as slightly above average in talent.  And where I excel is ridiculous, sickening, work ethic.  You know, while the other guy’s sleeping?  I’m working.  While the other guy’s eatin’?  I’m working.  While the other guy’s making love, I mean, I’m making love, too.  But I’m working really hard at it,”

And here is the genius footballer Pele:

“Everything is practice.”

Famously, some studies examining expert performance have found that a minimum of 10 years, or 10,000 hours, of sustained practice appears to be a necessary.  But not just any practice will do.  According to Dr K. Anders Ericsson, the ‘expert on expertise theory’, the key is ‘deliberate practice’, which is done with the specific goal of improving performance, is effortful and attention-demanding, is not necessarily enjoyable, and does not lead to immediate social or financial rewards.  So, according to Ericsson’s expertise theory, every athlete at the top level has invested huge amounts of high quality practice into their sport.  The same can be said of professional musicians, chess grandmasters, and leading scientists.

There are many things about Ericsson’s theory that are admirable, not least his attempt to differentiate between practice and deliberate practice, and his corrective of the default position of sport scientists to explain every phenomenon in terms of biology.  However, there are problems too.  One is the status of the magical 10,000 hours rule.  As a metaphor, it works quite well.  But the briefest perusal of the careers of champions (including those at the 2012 Games) reveals that 10,000 hours is not the threshold value it is often claimed to be.  Some champions have managed to excel in their sport remarkably quickly (such as the Olympic Gold Medalist HeatherStanning or the Ironman goddess Chrissie Wellington), whilst others have taken much, much longer to succeed at the top (such as almost every Golfer).  Also, the portrayal of deliberate practice – hours and hours of exhaustive and boring repetition) simply does not match the accounts of most champions.

My own research with elite sports people and dancers has provided some detail to the understanding of deliberate practice.  The figure below shows three of the key characteristics. 

Supported Learning - It is sometimes said that practice does not make perfect; practice makes permanence.  A task that is repeated for an extended length of time becomes progressively more automatic and unconscious.  This is fine if the task being learned is quite simple and done correctly, but if not, practice can cement ineffective skills.  This is why feedback is so important for learning, as it nudges the performer back to proper form.  This is also why teachers and coaches are vital to high quality learning.  They guide, direct, and correct practice.

Mindful Learning - An second problem with any repeated task is that is can quickly become boring.  The psychologist Ellen Langer calls this mindlessness, and suggests that it is a barrier to motivating, effective learning.  Mindfulness, on the other hand, occurs when the individual is actively involved with task, constantly makes small changes and variations, and is open to new ideas.  Langer describes this mindset like this:

“Mindfulness is a flexible state of mind in which we are actively engaged in the present, noticing new things and sensitive to context.”

Our studies have lead us to conclude that mindful learning is a powerful component of personal excellence.

Contextual Learning - The third factor is probably the most important from the point of view of effective learning: learning that reflects the real context of performance.  In other words, contextual learning is learning that is designed so that learners can carry out activities and solve problems in a way that reflects the nature of such tasks in the real world.  Research supports the effectiveness of learning in meaningful contexts.  This means that the best way to learn to play cricket is to play a lot of cricket games; and learning to play the piano happens when learners play music.  This is especially worth emphasizing, as decontextualised practice is extremely popular in many activities, especially in education and sport, where drills often take up a great deal of time in sessions.  Research suggests that such activities are mostly valueless.

The implication of these ideas seem clear: practice is not enough.  Excellence requires high quality learning experiences that are characterized by meaningful, attentive practice supported by great teachers or coaches.  This is a necessary condition of excellence.

Taken together, these strands of research suggest that the achievements of top sports people reflect fundamentally similar processes to those used by the rest of us as we battle with our own pursuits of personal excellence.  There is nothing magical about Olympic performance; it simply shows what is possible if practices that are available to all of us are taken to extremes.

So, Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s early insight seems to have been right.  The glory and spectacle of the Olympic Games can act as a metaphor for personal excellence, giving evidence of the possibility of the realization of potential.  Skills like goal setting and role clarity are used everyday by likes of Jessica Ennis, Tom Daley and Michael Phelps.  Most exciting, however, is the fact that they can also be learned by children, and applied to their own sport and their own schooling.  They might also be used by you, Dear Reader, in supporting your own ambitions.

Finding out more?

Ellen Langer The Power of Mindful Learning

Daniel Pink Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us

David Shenk The Genius in All of Us

Quick quiz answer: Answer: ALL of them!

You have read this article 2012 Summer Olympics / Ancient Greece / Champion / elite / jessica ennis / Katie Taylor / Mo Farah. Chrissie Wellington / Olympic / Olympic Games / Pierre de Coubertin / sports / talent development with the title talent development. You can bookmark this page URL http://say-sport.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-become-olympian.html. Thanks!

So What Is Developmentally Appropriate Sport?

I have written a guest blog for the sports coach UK site.  It's on a perennial, but challenging issue ofDevelopmentally Appropriate Sport.


Click on the image to directly to the site, or enter http://www.sportscoachuk.org/blog/so-what-developmentally-appropriate-sport-richard-bailey

http://www.sportscoachuk.org/blog/so-what-developmentally-appropriate-sport-richard-bailey

You have read this article aims / developmentally appropriate sport / disability sport; sport; inclusion; School Games / education / education sport / exercise / player development / talent development with the title talent development. You can bookmark this page URL http://say-sport.blogspot.com/2012/05/so-what-is-developmentally-appropriate.html. Thanks!

The Arts of Storytelling and Learning

I recently came across an interview with the US radio and TV host Ira Glass.  He was talking about the art of storytelling, and his basic message was this:



hard work, grit and stick-to-it-ness are needed if you are going to create great work.

Not a radical idea, I know.  Especially in the era of 10,000 hours of deliberate practice.  But Glass introduces another element that I've never seen mentioned in the literature of expert performance, and that is TASTE.




Here is what he says:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit."

This sense of frustration will be familiar to anyone who has ever tried to learn something.  Especially something complex.




For example, in the last few years I have tried to learn a number of difficult things including golf, sketching, and Italian. Each of these activities had their own challenges.  My main difficulties with Italian were linked my my apparent inability to hear the differences between many of the sounds and 'phonemes' that made up the language.  In my head I was speaking like a character in a Fellini film, whilst to my teachers I sounded like Phil Mitchell in a pizzeria.  With sketching, I had to learn to overcome my tendency to impose my preconceived ideas rather than what I was observing.  Chairs have four legs; faces have two eyes; those are the facts, whichever way they are facing.


And don't even get me started on golf!


Yet, as expertise theory (and common sense) would predict, the more I did these activities, the better I got, more or less.  And the pace of my improvement seemed ti be strongly associated with the quality of support and feedback I received from my teachers and coachers.


Ira Glass' discussion of storytelling is relevant to those interested in learning and expertise because it hints at a principle behind both practice and feedback: taste, or (if you prefer) AESTHETICS.  In other words, movement towards competence or even expertise in these areas is only possible because the learner and the teacher have their senses of aesthetic judgement - some attempts are better than others; some actions are desirable, not just because of the outcome, but because of an intrinsic value; generally speaking, grace, and fluidity and poise are preferable to their opposites.


Aesthetics are STANDARDS.


It seems to me that taste acts as a powerful motivator for both learners and teachers.  Both are inspired by a sense of the way a skill or technique is supposed to be, and - from time to time - their senses coincide!  If we wish to get better at our chosen activity - if we want to bridge the gap between ability and ambition - we need to be clear that we need to do the work.  There are no short cuts.

It is the responsibility of teachers and coaches to make this clear to the learner from the beginning.  Nothing of value is learned easily.


Glass again:

Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

So practice and feedback are vital elements in the development of expertise.  But both of these, I suggest, assume a sense of taste or aesthetics.  Practice, if it is for any purpose, must have some ambition.  And feedback is always with reference to a standard of performance or imitation.


Knowing helps explain our frustrations as we learn AND teach, and it helps explain why practice and feedback are so important in the first place.


To finish off, he is a recording of Ira Glass himself talking about storytelling, accompanied by some beautiful typography.


I'd love to hear your thoughts on the issues raised in this entry.  Criticisms, too!

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

You have read this article education / education sport / Evolution / learning / philosophy / physical activity / physical education / player development / sports / sports coaching / talent development / truth education with the title talent development. You can bookmark this page URL http://say-sport.blogspot.com/2012/02/the-arts-of-storytelling-and-learning.html. Thanks!

An Olympic Legacy for 2012

AN OLYMPIC LEGACY FOR LONDON 2012?

"We can no longer take it for granted that young people will choose sport. Some may lack the facilities.  Or the coaches and role models to teach them. Others, in an age of 24-hour entertainment and instant fame, may simply lack the desire.  We are determined that a London Games will address that challenge. So London's vision is to reach young people all around the world.  To connect them with the inspirational power of the Games." 

(Lord Coe, Singapore, 6 July 2005)

"At the moment I don't see the policies being put in place that will build on the inspiration of the Games for young people and that will change their lives for a lasting sports legacy … There are too many schools still on two hours or less of sport a week, with no links to the local communities and clubs and volunteers, and that is a missed opportunity in the last six years. Politicians of all parties have the responsibility for setting policy and we have not seen that vision delivered."

(Lord Moynihan, chairman ofthe British Olympic Association, 19 November 2011)

[Note: Despite first impressions, it is not the case that everyone in the United Kingdom is a Lord!  There are also Ladies, Sirs and Dames.  And, of course, their servants]

It is widely held that the UK’s somewhat surprising victory in the competition to host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games was at least partly the result of its representative’s ability to articulate a compelling legacy for the Games, that went far beyond the glories of two weeks of elite sport in July.  The Olympic Games is the biggest sporting and cultural event in the world – in the language of sport economists, it is a ‘mega-event’ – but there is an increasing expectation for hosts to provide more than just a sporting spectacle.

As can be seen from Sebastian Coe’s comments, taken from his rousing speech before the final decision of the host city was made, the UK bid was premised on using the Games as a stimulus for long-term social, economic and environmental change.  Likewise, London First, which represents big business in the capital, has asserted that,

“the 2012 legacy must be much more than a successful tournament and the regeneration of the Olympic Park site itself.  The Games must enhance London’s reputation as a dynamic, international city; catalyse the physical transformation of East London; and contribute to a step-change improvement in the skills, aspiration and employment of some of the country’s most deprived communities”.

But there have been increasing numbers of dissenters who have questionned successive governments’ commitments to the wider agenda of the Games.  Colin Moynihan’s statement is most significant, perhaps, because it came from someone very much within the UK’s sporting establishment.  And his is not a lone voice of concern.

The idea that major sporting events should seek to provide such a legacy has become commonplace in recent years.  Commentators usually refer to two examples as instances of successful legacy.  The Barcelona Games of 1992 has been hailed as a great success at almost every level, especially in terms of social and economic regeneration in the region.

But it was the Sydney games in 2000 that set the standard in terms of long-term and diverse effects.  Aside from the considerable improvement in sports performance in the host nation (Australia’s medal tally went up from 41 to 58, and stayed beyond the pre-Sydney level at Athens), its really significant benefits are more intangible.  The international perception of Sydney, and Australia as a whole, as a tourist and business destination has been transformed in the years following the Games and, according to some, the Olympic ideals - such as inspiration, friendship, fair play, perseverance, mutual respect, unity and joy in effort – somehow managed to bring about a reappraisal of attitudes to human and social rights.

Whether or not the Beijing Games can be considered a success depends, to a large extent, on whether or not we think that these political issues, especially human rights, matter in sporting events.  Seb Coe apparently does not think they do.

Of course, the selection of these cities to make the case for the Games is deliberate.  It would be naïve in the extreme to suppose that the hosting of a mega-event necessarily  results of regeneration.  For every success there are many more empty stadia, economic crises and lost opportunities.

In this respect, there are lessons to be learned from the analyses of Bent Flyvbjerg and his colleagues into the planning of megaprojects, such as tunnels, bridges and transport schemes.  They conclude:

“Rarely is there a simple truth … What is presented as reality by one set of experts is often a social construct that can be deconstructed and reconstructed by other experts” (Flyvbjerg, et al, 2003, p.60).

Flyvbjerg has demonstrated that on numerous occasions the advocates of such huge projects systematically misled the public in order to secure support and funding.

However, every case presents a possibility, and it is hard to deny the multifaceted potential of a well-planned, well-executed, well-supported Olympic Games for the host city, region and country. 

The Institute for Public Policy Research and Demos outlined five dimensions of an Olympic legacy for the London Games:

1) The social legacy – sport can in certain circumstances, provide an opportunity to involve a diverse range of people in delivering projects;

2) The employment legacy – there is little doubt that the London Olympics will generate a large number of new jobs, but there is a need for a more nuanced understanding of the employment potential of the Games than in terms of simple claims of numbers of jobs created;

3) The environmental legacy – there are fairly obvious environmental challenges presented by any mega-event, such as accommodating vast numbers of visitors, traffic and transport demands, energy and waste management;

4) The cultural legacy – culture as well as sport is supposed to create the foci of the Olympics.  The 2012 Games has the potential to focus international attention on the areas distinctive cultural assets.

5) The sporting legacy – the Games could act as a vehicle for stimulating increased participation, funding and facility development.

Yet, for all of the gushing excitement of politicians in London, many questions remain unanswered.  The research base on the wider effects of large-scale sporting events is still incomplete.  Academics have been critical of the misapplication of economic data by the promoters of such events for their own ends.  For example, whilst it might be the case that certain Games have resulted in the generation of more jobs in the region, critics have argued that the great majority were short-term, low-paid, or both.  And, of course, there is the danger of focusing on the benefits of an event without weighing up the costs.

Numerous groups have expressed concern at the growing expenditure associated with the event, at last count about £10billion, and the organisers of the 2012 Games have been criticised for their seeming reluctance to discuss their financial management and plans with external agencies.  Others have been critical of the relative investment in elite performance and the other aspects of London 2012.

Certainly, for a proposal based explicitly on young people’s participation and social transformation, discussions of actually implementing strategies have been negligible.

In an essay in Prospectmagazine, David Goldblatt presented a compelling case for Britain to start to take sport seriously.  More than three billion people tuned in to watch matches in the football World Cup in 2006, and the Olympics, for all of its faults, remains even more significant internationally.  No language or religion has sport’s scope or participation.  So the potential impact of the London Olympic Games in 2012 could be massive.

But if advocates for sport are to start to realise the sort of cultural importance that the arts have taken for granted for years, they will also need to be judged by the standards of planning, delivery and accountability that are normal in public life.

You have read this article administration / coaching / culture / disability sport; sport; inclusion; School Games / education sport / sports coaching / swimming / talent development with the title talent development. You can bookmark this page URL http://say-sport.blogspot.com/2012/01/an-olympic-legacy-for-2012.html. Thanks!

Sport and crime: A parliamentary discussion

There was an fascinating discussion about the role of sport in combatting youth crime and promoting social justice in the House of Commons.  I offer these extracts without comment as they rather speak for themselves.  They are also quite long enough!


(Citation: HC Deb, 6 December 2011, c24WH; available from: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm111206/halltext/111206h0001.htm#11120636000238)


_____________


NB. The BBC has broadcast this debate on its Democracy Live (although there may be access issues for non-UK viewers): http://bbc.in/uAE4sx


_____________

Daily Hansard - Westminster Hall

6 Dec 2011 : Column 1WH


Sport and Youth Crime


Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con): ... Today’s debate on the effects of sport on youth crime falls, in some ways, in the shadow of last summer’s riots ... This debate is set against a longer-term concern about the rising problem of disengaged youth, which has disturbed Governments of all persuasions for decades, and a belief by many in the sporting community that sport can and does play a positive role in re-engaging young people and refocusing their lives.

Nelson Mandela has said:

“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire… It speaks to youth in a language they understand. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down social barriers”,

and I want to use this debate not just to say that sport is good for its own sake, although many people believe that numerous benefits come with it. Studies of the benefits of youth participation in sport suggest that sport in and of itself is not enough to refocus or turn around the lives of disadvantaged young people and that what is required is a structured programme of support alongside the sporting activities. It is not simply a case of putting on ad hoc sporting events or creating new sporting facilities, but about how programmes are managed.

This is not simply a way of saying that Government intervention is necessarily a bad thing, or that Government agencies and public bodies are unable to deliver programmes that successfully intervene in young people’s lives. Support, including financial support, from the Government and their agencies is incredibly important to the success of such projects, but a good deal of new evidence suggests that sporting organisations and brands that have credibility in the eyes and lives of young people are often more successful in achieving the breakthrough that we all seek.

There has been a debate among people with an interest in sporting interventions in the lives of young people. People instinctively feel that such interventions are the right thing to do, and they have anecdotal evidence that they make a positive difference, but if there is any criticism, it is that there is perhaps a lack of robust data about exactly how they reduce criminal behaviour. I want to highlight some case studies that show the positive impact of such interventions on reducing crime and on antisocial behaviour and in improving the general well-being and educational performance of young people. The studies, of necessity in some ways, focus on relatively small numbers of people in relatively small geographical areas, and I would like the Government to consider some broader research that would seek to demonstrate the value for money and the performance of sporting interventions with young people.

I want to thank a number of sporting and other young people’s organisations that run such programmes and have provided information about them for the debate today—in particular, the Premier League, with its Kickz programme; the Manchester United Foundation; Charlton Athletic Community Trust; the Rugby Football Union; Sky Sports; the Sport and Recreation Alliance; First Light, which works in the arts; and Catch22. Their formal programmes are largely delivered by volunteers from the communities that they serve, and so I also want to thank the many volunteers who make them a success and the hundreds and thousands of people who work every day to deliver youth sporting projects, not just for disadvantaged young people but for all young people across the country. Their work is incredibly valuable and important to us all.

I want to look at four important areas that are of relevance to the debate: sporting programme interventions that help to reduce crime and antisocial behaviour; interventions that engage young offenders, both in young offenders institutions and after release; programmes for improving school attendance and attainment; and initiatives that help to rebuild young people’s self-worth.

We must consider costs; none of these programmes is delivered for free, although many are delivered with the support of the private and charitable sectors. We must also consider the costs of doing nothing, of maintaining the status quo. Based on 2010 figures, the National Audit Office has calculated that more than 200,000 criminal offences a year are committed by people aged between 10 and 17 at an annual cost to the country of up to £11 billion. It costs up to £100,000 a year to keep someone in a young offenders institution, and the number of 15 to 17-year-olds in prison has doubled over the past 10 years. During the five days of riots in August, 26% of the rioters were under 17, and 74% were under 24. There is not a male bias in the programmes and activities—they are open to boys and girls—but it is worth noting that 90% of the rioters were male.

First, on reducing crime and antisocial behaviour, one of the longest running and most successful projects is Kickz. It has been run by the premier league for five years, has involved contact with more than 50,000 young people across 113 projects in some of the UK’s most deprived areas and has been supported by 43 professional football clubs. Kickz targets 12 to 18-year-olds, and its projects are football-led but include other sports and programmes designed to encourage young people’s awareness of health issues. The schemes typically take place three nights a week throughout the year, which is important in that they are frequent and have a very fixed structure. Kickz and the Premier League believe that one in 10 of the young people who initially attend the programmes as participants go on to volunteer, delivering the programmes for other young people, and they say that 398 people have gained full-time employment in some of the professional football clubs that have run the projects.

A report published last year by the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation and New Philanthropy Capital, entitled “Teenage Kicks”, looked at a project run with Arsenal football club in Elthorne park in London and discovered that the investment in the project potentially created £7 of value for every £1 spent, with the savings coming from the reduced costs to the state of the reduction in criminal behaviour, with less police and court time needed to put people in detention. One participant said that he thought that 25% of the kids on the estate would be in jail without the programme, and he highlighted the nature of the problems that many young people face. He was someone who came home from school to find not a fridge full of food and people waiting for him, but nothing for him at all and an empty time in his day.
Interestingly, the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation also commissioned a report looking at the role of sport in gang culture. Young people involved in the research gave reasons why they might get involved in activities that would keep them out of trouble, and the top reason was that the activities would simply give them something to do. We should not underestimate the importance of that.

Returning to the study of the Elthorne park Kickz project delivered by Arsenal, it suggested that there had been a 66% reduction in youth crime within a one-mile radius of the project. Even taking into account other interventions—through community policing, for example —and after looking at national youth crime reduction trends for that period, the study’s authors thought it reasonable to suggest that at least 20% of that reduction was directly related to the project.

The Manchester United Foundation has delivered similar projects, with its star footballers working with youth workers and volunteers to deliver football-based recreational projects for young people in Manchester. Some of its research suggests a similar pattern of behaviour to that found in other research. It believes that in its Salford project there was a 28.4% reduction in antisocial behaviour during the session times when the foundation was working, and a 16.3% reduction in Trafford.

There are other smaller projects that in some ways work with people with more challenging needs, and I want to highlight—this has been highlighted in the Laureus report and by other people—the work of the Tottenham boxing academy. Members who know more about boxing than I do might take part in this debate, so I will not dwell too much on this. The project was designed for 14 to 16-year-olds. Physical impact sports—boxing and rugby—seem to be particularly effective when working with people from troubled backgrounds and certainly with those who have been involved criminal activity. There were 17 people on that project. Eight of them were known to have been offenders in the past, and based on normal intervention programmes, two thirds of those young people would normally be expected to reoffend within a year. However, in that instance, only two did. It is a small project, but it suggests that sporting projects help to re-engage people. They engage young people through a sport and then allow the youth workers delivering the project to engage with them about the other issues that they might have.

...

The project Hitz is delivered by the Rugby Football Union, the premiership rugby clubs and the police across 10 London boroughs, and has 750 participants. Again, the sessions are led by youth workers and run frequently, twice a week for 50 weeks of the year. In the Haggerston park area of Hackney, where the project was delivered, the fall in antisocial behaviour calls was calculated at 39% during the project.

Such projects often encourage people not just to take part in the project itself, but to take their interest into a more structured environment and perhaps into full-time participation in the sport. The Hackney Bulls rugby club recruited six new players from people involved in Hitz, and overall, the programme has taken 41 young people into full-time participation in rugby.

In my area, Kent, the Charlton Athletic Community Trust has done excellent work with young people over a number of years. Certain projects that have sought to re-engage young people and refocus their lives have caused similar falls in antisocial behaviour, including a fall of 35% in Aylesham and 59% in Buckland. The trust also does good work on alternative curriculum provision to re-engage young people with their studies, and I will come to that in a moment.

Good work can be done in the community to help direct young people away from the path of criminality, as my hon. Friend highlighted. There is also some evidence on work being done to engage young people in the prison environment, often at low cost, as many prisons and young offender institutions have good sporting facilities, and it is a question of bringing in the right people to engage young offenders. Those programmes use sport to help bridge the gap between life inside an institution to life outside it afterwards.

A project called 2nd Chance has worked in the Ashfield young offenders institution. Drawing on professional sports clubs around Bristol, such as Bristol Rovers and Bristol rugby club, it has worked with 400 offenders a year and is a low-cost provision. It has been calculated that, if just one offender with whom the programme works is kept out of prison, that will pay for the delivery of the entire programme for a year. When we consider that the current reoffending rate for young offenders in Ashfield is 76%, it seems a risk worth taking.

...

In conclusion, I ask the Government to consider the issues raised by my remarks and the case studies that I have mentioned. The Government should shift their priorities generally—they have already signalled a shift—so that they do not just increase participation in sport for good but consider how targeted intervention by sporting projects can help change the lives of some of the most hard-to-reach young people. They should consider how to create a unified approach to delivery across Departments. The work touches on the role of the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Education and the Department for Communities and Local Government, all of which have some interest in the delivery of such projects. A unified approach is needed, probably with a lead Minister to take responsibility for and an interest in how those projects are delivered.

There should be a review of some of the rules and regulations about the delivery of sporting projects on the ground. Many sporting clubs cite problems with Criminal Records Bureau checks and other forms of bureaucracy that make their work more difficult. We should certainly look at that. All the national sporting bodies should prioritise the development of coaching qualifications and the training of people to help deliver projects.

To return to what I said at the beginning of the debate, a good starting point would be to build on the work that is being done by many sporting and charitable organisations, take up the research that they have done, complete a fuller study and analysis of the benefits and the rate of return from this type of intervention, and then consider the potential basis of further Government support via Government agencies, local government and the police—through crime prevention strategies—to make this a fuller programme for the country. The need to re-engage with young people is strong and evident, and the riots over the summer demonstrated that clearly to us all. Through the fog of this despair, there is evidence of some incredible and successful interventions that are turning around the lives of young people. We should draw from that and build for the future.


...


Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): ... The debate’s title could have been recast and centred on the effect of sports leaders on youth crime, because I think that sports leaders are what really do it in terms of reducing crime. Clearly, the sport itself plays a part, but I think it is the sports leaders who have the impact, and that is because of the discipline that they can instil, their important mentoring role, and the values that they demonstrate in leading young people, whatever their sporting activity. The Government have to get on top of the mentoring role. I believe that there is an issue about which Government Department should take responsibility for mentors. There is a clear need for them in, I would suggest, large numbers, but there seem to be difficulties in securing them, so that is an area for the Government to focus on.

Sport is also central to reducing youth crime and engaging young people in positive diversionary activities. Sport is all about team play—working together with others—which might be something that they have not experienced before. Moreover, exercise undoubtedly helps address the anger management issues that some young people may have—it is a lot harder to be angry after three hours of intense sporting activity. Sport is also about sportsmanship and being able to demonstrate to other young people the value of fair play. Wrapped up in all of that is the issue of diet, which is necessary not only to succeed at sport at almost any level but to address diet failures, particularly if alcohol is an issue.

There are many examples of very successful sports schemes—or schemes that use sport, which are slightly different—that are used to tackle criminal behaviour or reduce the risk of offending. The hon. Gentleman has referred to Kickz, which is a very good project, and I will refer to a couple of statistics that highlight its success. There has been a 60% reduction in antisocial behaviour in areas in which Kickz is active, and up to a 20% reduction in the crimes that are most often associated with young people. Clearly, the project has the metrics to demonstrate that it is successful, but, like the hon. Gentleman, I think there is an issue about being able to demonstrate what types of projects are in fact successful. Anecdotal evidence is, of course, very good, but if the Government, the voluntary sector and charities, or social entrepreneurs want to invest in something, we need more than anecdotal evidence to support what is and what is not successful.

I am fortunate to have Cricket for Change based in my constituency. It does a lot of work on street cricket and engaging young people, both boys and girls, in it. Such is the success of its programmes that it has exported them to other countries around the world, such as Jamaica, Sri Lanka and South Africa, so it has taken the idea to challenging deprived areas and has bound people together. It has just finished a three-year programme targeting the 10 communities in London with the highest levels of youth crime. I want to see what that project’s metrics say about the outcomes, because it may have been very successful.

Another local project is Community Inspirations, the importance of which is that it can provide wraparound for some young people who have fallen out of education. They may, for instance, be training locally at the Skills and Integrated Learning Centre—SILC—in plastering, tiling and other skills. There is often an issue about what they do during the school holidays. The typical activities of organisations such as Community Inspirations centre on sport. It often takes a group of young people who may never have stepped outside their postcode to another part of the country to meet other young people and play in competitions. It is having an important impact.

...

This is my last point. We know that the cost of sending people to prison is £40,000 up to—who knows?—£200,000 for a very secure establishment. We want to see some hard facts about the success of these projects in diverting young people away from crime, so that we can offset the expenditure on those projects against the savings that will be derived by having fewer young people in our prisons. If the Government can achieve that, there will be a substantial improvement in our understanding of how we can tackle these problems.

...

Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con): ...I thank him and other hon. Members for illustrating so effectively the statistical basis we have to demonstrate why sport is so important in tackling youth crime.

There is also the value-for-money aspect. My hon. Friend talked in a learned manner about boxing and the Tottenham boxing academy. What is so fascinating is that, as an alternative pupil referral unit, it actually costs a lot less than a regular PRU and is significantly more successful. In difficult economic times, youth sport is not only a good mechanism to tackle one of the big issues of our time, which erupted in August, but an extremely valuable mechanism to deal with social problems that arise when we do not have much money to do so.

In my short time this morning, I do not want to concentrate on anecdotes, because there are many, or the statistics and value-for-money figures, because they have been given out very effectively. I want to outline briefly why sport is important. If we understand what sport is and why it is important, it becomes a no-brainer that it will perform the functions that we need to demonstrate statistically—because we are accountable politicians—before we spend money on it. It is very important to understand what sport is.

I am president of my local boxing club, The National Smelting Co Amateur Boxing club, and chair of the all-party group on boxing. As with many sports, boxing is so important for many young people who have fallen out of all the normal authority measures. They have fallen out of school, because they do not see that it offers anything for them. They have fallen out of the council’s best attempts to engage them in its systems of social work, because they feel that they are dislocated from authority. For many young people, the boxing club is the only rival identity to other less savoury identities that are offered to them. One young boxer said to me:

“My life was a cul-de-sac of going into a gang. If I wanted an identity, security, protection, feeling I am something, there was only one option for me and that was to join a gang. My local boxing club provided an avenue off that cul-de-sac where I could find a family and identity.”

Family and identity, particularly identity for young people, are massively important. We all remember our school playground days and how important it was to be a member of a group of friends for our own identity. Crucially, for many young people, sport is the first opportunity they have to have a traction on achievement. In the riots, we saw a whole generation of young people who felt that they had nothing to lose, so why not go off and do stupid things? They felt they had no traction on achievement in their lives. They did not actually know how to achieve. The word “aspiration” is bandied around a lot, and the concept, included in the document, “Five days in August”, of hope and dreams is also bandied about a lot. There is a big, big difference between having hopes and dreams, and having goals. A hope and a dream is something one might vaguely hope to get to. Lots of young people have hopes and dreams of being David Beckham, or a WAG. They do not have any idea of how to achieve those hopes and dreams.

Sport begins to give young people a ladder to climb, from where they are now to where they think they want to be. Not everyone can be David Beckham. He is a very talented footballer. The narrative that society gives to young people is that David Beckham became David Beckham by just appearing on TV one day in a football kit, but David Beckham became David Beckham by putting in hours and hours and hours of training and hard work. The immense value of sports clubs—particularly boxing clubs for kids who will not engage with other forms of society, because they feel they are too much part of authority—is that they provide the first opportunity to learn the very important lesson that my old swimming coach, Eric Henderson, taught me—no pain, no gain. To achieve something, one has to put in effort now, be it doing maths homework because one wants to be rich, have a fast car and a very attractive wife, or be it putting in a bit of effort going for a run and a sports training session that one does not really want to do—because it is early in the morning, it is raining and one feels tired—but one does because one wants to achieve something in sporting life later on. That, of course, applies to school, sport and life. It applies to getting a job. It applies to so many things. In fact, it is the citizenship lesson about work and achievement—about teamwork, learning how to win and learning how to lose—that is so often delivered in schools in a two-dimensional form on a piece of paper, but which we need to deliver to young people in a real form on our sports fields and in our sports clubs.

We have the most extraordinary opportunity on our horizon next year. It is a once in a generation event: the Olympic games. We have just come through a summer that has rocked our nation. There is a problem with youth disengagement that we all knew existed. My goodness me, communities up and down the country knew it existed, because it was on their doorsteps daily. It erupted with massive force in London in August. The whole country looked at our young people and asked, “How have we let this happen?”

Next year, we have the most iconic solution to that problem—we have the Olympic games. I beg Government—I will do everything I can to work with them—not to let the opportunity of an Olympic legacy go to waste. On the ground, people know that sport works. If we understand the basic psychology of kids and all human beings, it is very apparent why sport works. We urgently need statistics, and the statistics base around it, to justify expenditure we need to make. We need to put that at the heart of tackling the massive social problem that erupted this year. What better opportunity is there to do that than when our British Olympic champions stand up on those podiums with those medals that I have no doubt they will win, saying, “Not only is this a gold medal because I was fastest or jumped highest on the day, not only is this a gold medal to say I was the best, but this gold medal also means a lot to me because of all the work I put in to get there”? Not everyone can be an Olympic champion, but everyone has their own personal best that they can achieve. It would be a great message to have every British Olympian standing and inspiring our young people to achieve. We can only do that if they have the rungs on the bottom of the ladder in our communities at grass-roots sports level in our schools and in our amateur sports clubs.

Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con): ... I am passionate about the positive role that sport can play in our local communities. I support that positive role through encouraging a healthy and active lifestyle that improves behaviour, teamwork and enjoyment. Sport can channel young people’s energy and boost self-esteem. Sport can be a forum for enjoyment, friendship and personal fulfilment. Sport can reach and change young people by improving their life chances, increasing educational attainment and building life skills. Sport can achieve some of the social outcomes that will help transform our society, and sport can be used a tool to benefit disadvantaged young children.

...

I want to focus my comments on the opportunities that I benefited from and that we as a society can provide for young children. When I was first elected, probably one of my more controversial moves was to support the move to defend the school sports partnership programme. I was a big champion of that scheme, because its whole principle was to provide sporting opportunities for those who are not particularly naturally competitive. If someone is gifted at sport, invariably that is because their parents have encouraged them from a young age, and they will therefore have been provided with plenty of opportunities. The vast majority of children, however, need a bit more encouragement. The one thing that the school sports partnership programme does very well is offer a wide programme of opportunities. There is a sport for everyone. When I refer to sport, it is not always necessarily the obvious sports that we might see in the Olympics or on the television, but such sports as street dance—basically, anything that can make young people active and constructive.

We also need to encourage more coaches—a number of hon. Members have already touched on that—but also day-to-day volunteers. When I talk to sports clubs, their biggest challenge is to find someone to be the club secretary or treasurer, and someone to fill in all the complicated forms and to organise the fixtures. There is a real deficit of people to fill those roles. In a society, people who are not particularly sports-minded can still play a constructive role. I welcome the work of the Football Foundation with its funding; rather than only the traditional provision of a brand-new, shiny set of football kits for a variety of sports clubs, it is looking at the legacy and encouraging more coaches and volunteers, so that more people get an opportunity to benefit.

Charlotte Leslie: Does my hon. Friend agree that, if we are going to talk about the big society, for example, there are few areas where it is more prevalent than in sport?

Justin Tomlinson: I am passionate about the merits of the big society, and sport can be absolutely at the heart of it. We can all play a role, even if it is not the traditional one of leading on the front line in the sporting team.

...

The challenge for us all is not to make the case for whether sport can play an important role in helping young people to achieve, thereby in tackling crime and under-achievement, but to say how to do that. The hon. Member for North Swindon mentioned school sports, and I pay tribute to the support that he gave to many of us who were deeply worried by the proposals to cut the school sports programme.

...

School sports drove up participation in high-quality physical education for our young people from only 25% in 1997 to more than 90% in 2010. The school sport partnership, to which the hon. Member for North Swindon referred, was vital because it enabled the infrastructure that made participation possible to be put together, including the people who organised the games, provided the coaching and looked for the range of sports that young people want to take part in. When the Government foolhardily tried to dismantle that network, there was, rightly, an outcry. It is welcome that they have backed down to some degree, although many of us who still work with our local school sport co-ordinators are worried about the impact of those changes.

The issue is not just what can be done in schools. Critically, it involves the role of the voluntary sector. Some fantastic examples have been mentioned today. I have worked in the scouting movement, and I want to put on the record my support for voluntary organisations and the number of activities that they could provide. We are all clear that not just one sport is involved. Indeed, the scouting movement prides itself on being able to provide 200 different activities for young people each week and recognises that a range of provision is needed to engage with the range of young people.

I see the work of organisations such as Kickz in my community, and I want to put on the record my thanks to the Leyton Orient community sports programme for promoting that work. The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe referred to the teenage Kickz research. We know the impact of its work in pulling back young people who are at risk of antisocial behaviour, and we know that that makes a difference and is valuable not just for their antisocial behaviour but for their future achievement. He also referred to a social return on investment. Such programmes with the right people bring rewards that we could not achieve through sport provision alone.

...

Nick Herbert: ... There has been no dispute about the value of sport in having a positive impact on behaviour. It teaches control, self-discipline and the importance of teamwork. It unites people and provides opportunities for people, wherever they come from. Sporting activity is of huge value in preventing offending. Where offending has taken place, sport can play an enormous part as an intervention to break the cycle that I described. We must be careful to ensure that it is not the only intervention. There may be other causes of offending behaviour that need to be addressed in parallel. Whether there are learning difficulties or various addictions, sport can be one of the means to help an offender, but other interventions may be equally important.

There was also agreement about the importance of role models, particularly the powerful role models provided in sport. Such role models can of course provide a catalyst for change. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) talked about the particular value of sports leaders, but I am sure he did not mean to imply that those were simply national sports leaders. Of course, national figures in sport, as mentioned by other Members, have a significant impact on young people. The mentors described by my right hon. Friend work at local level and come from all sorts of places. They can show a leadership role, and assist and encourage young people to engage in sporting activity. That is equally important.

I spoke recently to a police community support officer who, in addition to his community work, devotes much of his private time to working with young people and providing coaching in local sporting activities. He felt that it was important to assist those young people to take part in a constructive activity that would prevent them from getting into trouble. Such volunteers and local heroes matter just as much as national role models; I agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) when she said that it was important to fly the flag for volunteers, and to celebrate them and recognise what they do.

...

Charlotte Leslie: Will the Minister recognise the work of the Football Foundation? It carries out fantastic work not only by efficiently using funds to renovate community sports facilities but by putting structures in place so that those facilities are more self-sustaining and do not require so much Government funding. That is the kind of long-term legacy that it would be good to see more of throughout the country after the Olympics.

Nick Herbert: I am happy to recognise that; there is clearly a role for civil society, sport clubs and organisations, as well as for the Government and bodies that provide public funding. My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe mentioned Kickz and Hitz as examples of programmes that are driven by national sporting organisations and have a real impact on the ground. StreetChance is an initiative that promotes cricket, and StreetGames works with national governing bodies to support athletics, table tennis, handball, gymnastics, badminton and rowing. Through the initiatives of such national sporting bodies, it is possible to reach out and offer young people the opportunity to engage in a multitude of sports.

In the remaining time available, I wish to pick up on some specific points raised by my hon. Friend. He was clear that he was not calling for a general increase in sporting participation, and that targeted intervention—rather than just dealing with crime—was the objective. I agree with him. He specifically called for robust data on such interventions, and for research to identify whether they provide value for money. That general call is welcomed by the Government. The whole thrust of our criminal justice reform programme is to move to a situation in which we are much clearer about the outcomes that programmes deliver. When resources are tight, it is particularly important to ensure that money is being well spent, and that is why we are increasingly moving towards payment by results in the delivery of criminal justice interventions, so that we can be certain that we are getting the outcomes we need.

In spite of the challenge of public spending, Government-funded programmes are continuing, specifically in relation to youth crime. The Positive Futures programme will continue until the end of 2013; thereafter, elected police and crime commissioners will have a budget that they can distribute for similar programmes, should they so choose. The Positive Futures programme delivers sports and arts-based activities that target and support vulnerable 10 to 19-year-olds in some of our most disadvantaged communities.

Although I accept my hon. Friend’s injunction about targeted interventions, it is important to ensure that school children have access to sporting facilities—my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon also raised that point—and that physical education is valued in schools. Physical education will continue to be compulsory for all pupils following the review of the national curriculum, and we are taking action to ensure that young people in local communities are not deprived of access to playing fields and sporting facilities.

As part of Sport England’s £135 million “Places, People, Play” legacy programme, the Minister for Sport and the Olympics, and Sport England, recently launched a protecting playing fields initiative—a £10 million fund to protect and improve sports fields across the country. The programme will fund projects that create, develop and improve playing fields for sporting and community use, and offer long-term protection of those sites for sport. Sport England will run five £2 million funding rounds over the next three years, investing between £20,000 and £50,000 in schemes such as buying new playing field land, improving the condition of pitches through drainage, or bringing disused sports fields back into use. That is important; the issue is not only about role models, access and funding schemes; we must also ensure that facilities are available both inside and outside schools.

You have read this article education sport / PE / physical education / Richard Bailey / schools / social skills / sport / talent development with the title talent development. You can bookmark this page URL http://say-sport.blogspot.com/2011/12/sport-and-crime-parliamentary-discussion.html. Thanks!