Schools athletics

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shedley
Posts: 69
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2014 11:36 am

Schools athletics

Unread post by shedley »

Facebook users may have seen my post thinking that Waid and Madras pupils weren't aware/given the opportunity to compete at the SSAA Indoor Champs last week. Lesley Thirkell pointed out that Rory Voss (from Waid - well done Rory!) won a couple of medals there, so obviously this wasn't quite right. It turns out that Rory was the only pupil from the 3 state secondary schools (Waid, Bell Baxter and Madras) entered for these champs. I am really concerned that athletics is being sidelined for other sports, and speaking as a Madras parent, an awful lot of the social media posts from our PE dept promote girls' or boys' football. According to the SSAA website, neither Madras nor Bell Baxter have even affiliated to SSAA this year, so presumably neither school has any entrants to the upcoming Schools XC (with SIAB selections at stake) - the entry deadline for which was last Friday. What I'm wondering is... does anyone actually care about this? And if anyone does, what should we do? I'm sorry my girls have missed out on the Schools XC this year, but they do plenty of other stuff and it's not too much of an issue for us as a family. I do care about others having opportunities to take part in these events in future years though. Thoughts anyone?
Damon Thoms
Posts: 19
Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2018 7:25 am

Re: Schools athletics

Unread post by Damon Thoms »

This is the first year for about five years that we have not reminded Bell Baxter, about athletic events. One of the main causes would seem to be turnover of staff. The best year was when there was a graduate working at Bell Baxter. The lady at Active Fife (Hayley) is good, but you need to work with her, she is not aware of all of the different activities events.

I think the schools are not the main issue (they are Rugby, Football, Hockey, Netball biased) , but they will argue, wrongly or rightly, about lack of resources and being overworked. The various governing bodies need to get aligned and promote these events more.

The local primary schools cross country events that were on in Fife were a great way of getting children running. The Mini Tour another, there is just not an obvious broader view from above. Elspeth would also let us know about events, it is like Scottish Athletics needs a Regional Development Officer, or something, to help bring schools, clubs, other events and people together.
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Dave Morton
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2020 1:08 pm

Re: Schools athletics

Unread post by Dave Morton »

Hi guys, I have actually wondered about this here in Kirkcaldy where we have Gary Barker's Fife AC training group, the jogScotland group 'Kirkcaldy Wizards', a parkrun and 4 high schools. I recently sent an email to all 4 high schools and am in the progress of meeting the 'Active Schools Coordinator' for KHS. Each school seems to have one of these. My enquiry went 'up the tree' so to speak to the 'Active Communities – Sports Development Officer' at Fife Council who also thought it was a great idea to 'forge these pathways' as he put it.
One of the things that came up was that any body looking to engage with the public education sector must be accredited to Club Fife (https://active.fife.scot/get-involved/clubs/clubfife) before they can engage.
I was looking to create clear pathways between the pupils (and teachers) and parkrun (running and volunteering), the Wizards jogScotland group and then if they wanted, Fife AC.
I'll let you know the outcome, if you're interested.
Cheers :-)
alexjarrett
Posts: 12
Joined: Thu Jul 01, 2021 9:31 am
Location: St Andrews
Contact:

Re: Schools athletics

Unread post by alexjarrett »

Sharon

From reading your post and having a look online. Seems to be the primary schools are also failing, or at least my daughters school.
I haven't heard the girls mention the Scottish Primary XC to date. I have looked online and it's still going ahead at Kirkcaldy High School on the 23rd of April. I am going to contact Lawhead PS, find out what's required, hopefully I can do something to allow the girls and their classmates to take part. It may need myself and other parents assistance, I would assume similar to what parents currently do at club level.

Maybe with parents assisting going forward, it will hopefully allow the kids to represent their schools! Parents assist in other areas, such as PTA's etc Hopefully they may consider a sporting branch to assist the schools accordingly. Might be a lot of red tape, PVG's etc but I am sure we could make it work.

Damon

Regional officer would be a good idea, just wondering if they'll have the budget for such a role.
Agree also about importance of these races and locally too. The Kirkcaldy Primary Schools XC was my first ever race as a kid, no training or a clue what XC was, we all rocked up and soon found out :0)

Alex
SPurves18
Posts: 14
Joined: Sat Sep 18, 2021 6:30 pm

Re: Schools athletics

Unread post by SPurves18 »

Hi
Daniel was really keen to participate in this and just asked his class teacher this week, but she hadn’t heard about it. I went online today to the Scottish Schools Athletics website and it says it has been cancelled. There were no further details so it could have been for any number of reasons, but it would be interesting to know if it was due to lack of participation. I teach in 2 primary schools and had not received any info about it, so it would be a real shame if there is a communication issue that has led to the cancellation. There are lots of people working so hard to get kids into sport and Active Schools are promoting so many great initiatives locally, so fingers crossed for next year…
shedley
Posts: 69
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2014 11:36 am

Re: Schools athletics

Unread post by shedley »

Thanks for those responses. The Primary Schools XC was always a brilliant one to attend, and certainly was not short of numbers so I doubt that would be the issue. We were lucky it was so close (in Kirkcaldy) but schools travelled from all over the country for it, even from Sutherland. The good thing about Primary Schools athletics is that the schools don't have to pay an affiliation fee to SSAA. I wonder if a Fife AC club official could find out why it was cancelled this year, on your behalf?

As for the Secondary Schools, there is a £75 affiliation fee, and I was concerned that NE Fife state schools had made a conscious decision not to pay it, Waid being the obvious exception. I don't know - it may be just that it was an administrative oversight, but it would be good to find out. St Leonards pupils (Fife AC members) have just had great success at the Schools XC, and although state schools support athletics elsewhere in Scotland, there doesn't seem to be the appetite for it in NE Fife.

To add fuel to the fire, we're now being asked about availability for the Kingdom Athletic team (Fife, Dundee and Pitreavie). I can't see that we will have very many participants who live in NE Fife as we haven't managed to replace Elspeth and as far as I know, still don't have any junior track and field training going on here. It's quite a worrying decline. Of course, I'm aware the situation is much healthier in other parts of Fife, but it doesn't help those of us with children who can't travel to Kirkcaldy/Dunfermline to train.
Sandilands
Posts: 48
Joined: Sun Nov 02, 2014 9:01 pm

Re: Schools athletics

Unread post by Sandilands »

Hello. I emailed the SSAA secretary to ask if they could let me know why the Primary Schools xc was cancelled and this is their reply:

“ Kirkcaldy HS continued to tell us that Fife council would not let access for community use of their facilities due to current restraints.

By late February we hadn’t managed to find a suitable alternative with a challenging course & cover for the young athletes.

I believe Fife had just changed policy as the High Schools are all now affiliating as the van on attending has been lifted.

All just came a little too late.”
alexjarrett
Posts: 12
Joined: Thu Jul 01, 2021 9:31 am
Location: St Andrews
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Re: Schools athletics

Unread post by alexjarrett »

Thanks for the update. Do you know if the Fife Primary Schools XC will go ahead at the Beveridge park in May?
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