Manawatu bucks national trend

The 2008 secondary school sport census shows Manawatu is bucking the national trend towards a decline in participation levels.

The census, which is carried out by the New Zealand Secondary Schools Council (NZSSSC) shows there has been a national trend of decline in sport participation in all areas (boys, girls and teachers involved). However in the Manawatu (which includes Tararua and Horowhenua schools) there has been a small increase; boys’ participation has increased 2% from the 2007 results while girls’ and teachers’ have climbed 1%.

“Participation rates remain strong in this region because of encouragement from passionate teachers entwined with the strong support from parents, sporting clubs and associations. It remains essential that teachers develop relationships with their students outside of the classroom through sport and other activities. These positive relationships are then of significant benefit as they are transferred to the classroom learning environment,” says Tim O’Connor, Rector of Palmerston North Boys’ High School.
Sport Manawatu secondary school sport director, Hayden Marshall, is pleased that participation levels are not in decline, “however we need to build on these results to ensure secondary school sport continues to thrive in our region. The key to this will be teacher support.”

The census shows members of school staff and teachers still provide the largest proportion of sports leadership with 48% of the coaches, managers and officials found from the school staff, 34% are found from the community and 18% from the students themselves.
The NZSSSC state in their report that: “from their position inside the school, with their ability to work successfully with young people and access to the students, teachers are the key to engaging our students in secondary school sport.”
NZSSC also say it would be reasonable to assume that if teacher’s involvement were to further increase then so to would student participation.

Mr O’Connor believes now is not the time to be complacent; “We must continue to promote sport as an essential ingredient in a teenager’s lifestyle at a time when there are many social and technological distractions that allows apathy to embed itself.”
The SportFit committee, which includes Mr O’Connor and representatives from all the schools in the region, has met with the Sport Manawatu board following the census results.
“Discussions centred on the scope of coaching, with both groups agreeing that an increase in coaching personnel and an increase in their capability would be the most influential factor in participation,” says Mr Marshall.

As a result he will be collaborating with the coachforce coordinator at Sport Manawatu to meet with schools to identify specific needs in relation to coaching.
“We hope to have a collaborative approach to support coaches in schools; if we can provide more support to coaches then we can build a good environment for further increasing participation in sport.”

ENDS

Background:

SportFit is a governance group that oversees secondary schools sport in the area (Manawatu, Horowhenua, Tararua) while acting in an advisory capacity to support Sport Manawatu’s secondary school sport director.

The New Zealand Secondary Schools Council (NZSSSC) in association with regional sports trusts and secondary schools has been collecting nationwide data for 11 years on boys and girls that are part of sports codes, as well as the officials, coaches and managers involved.

This data is referred to as the Census and only measures student involvement in format sports teams or individual sports. A student who plays more than one sport is only counted once in the census. The full report can be downloaded from the NZSSSC website: http://www.nzsssc.org.nz/index.cfm/Secondary_Schools_Sports_Data