At Charters we purchased 16 bikes. These were funded, 8 through the Foundation for Special Needs and 8 through the Sports College budget. Additionally we have 2 Xdream'swere bought for the School's Disability Resource Unit to enable the Resource Unit students to ‘participate' in competitive mountain biking as well as working on their general fitness, core stability and cognitive awareness.
Currently we have 21 students registered for the Sports Cat Award. These are all "Young Apprentices", individuals that are aspiring to a sports related career.
As a "Young Apprentice", they must apply in writing and sit a 3 person panel interview with a Q & A session of 15-20 minutes. They must commit to 3 out of 5 inset days of attending classes and forfeit two half terms in year 10 plus an extra 90 minutes every Friday. (During this time they qualify as Sports Leaders, Tennis Leaders, Junior Football Leaders, Level 2 Fitness Instructors(Active IQ) and of course Sport Cats (also accredited through Active IQ as Level 2 Certificate in Leading Health Related Activities).
The Sports Cat Leadership Award has been combined with other sporting awards to give the eventual qualifying individuals a real training qualification whereby they will be able to enter the fitness industry with a very real and useable qualification. This is a significant plus for the student and is in essence it is down to the comprehensive nature of the Leadership Award as much of the award works across the curriculum, English, Maths, Science and Geography.
An additional plus, by completing certain sections of the Award,eg the Anatomy & Physiology, it covers work for their BTEC Sport, GCSE PE and the AIQ level 2 Fitness Instructor, therefore time is reduced duplicating learning and the student can obtain more qualifications .
Further impact for the student is they receive 14 reps points for the Register of Exercise Professionals accrediting them. They become confident individuals that can teach in front of many different people, brilliant for when they go into fitness or sport but the ability to stand up in front of others is also invaluable in any career.
The impact for the school is they are tremendous role models for younger students within the school, inspiring future students and even disaffected individuals plus helping the school target the students that don't currently participate in OSHL.
Eventually we hope that by teaching their inspirational X-bike classes, they will help deliver our PE classes.
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