Teaching School-Age Sport

Baroness Howells of St Davids Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howells of St Davids]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for raising this debate. His opening speech and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Heyhoe Flint, were enlightening. What I am about to say about the merits of sport in schools will take a different turn.

On Monday night, I attended an awards evening hosted by Tessa Sanderson’s foundation. Tessa is a gold medallist. The foundation, in collaboration with Newham College, seeks out talent, trains and gives much support to those who, because of poverty or ill health, may have missed the opportunity to get involved in sport. Many recipients of the awards paid tribute to the help that they received and talked of how their lives had been turned around. Most of the audience were so moved that there was hardly a dry eye in the room.

One awardee, sitting in his wheelchair, told his story. He left his school at 16 after the break-up of his parents’ marriage. He got into drugs, gangs, stealing and so on, and became a “no-good person”—those are his words—until one night, he decided to steal a motorbike, which he drove into a wall. He broke his back and lay in a hospital bed for some considerable time, contemplating suicide. He said he blamed no one, and said that it was his fault and that he needed no sympathy. That was until his mentor came into his life. His mentor introduced him to sport and he has been the recipient of many medals. He is hoping to go for gold in the 2012 Olympic Games. His mentor says that he has a good chance of raising the union jack with pride. His one regret is that he was not introduced to the buzz of sport during his school days. He is now financially secure, enjoying life and would like to influence others.

For most young British black males, sport of one sort or another has been the only means of upward mobility. The have used their talents across as many athletic fields as they have been exposed to. There are too many names to list them here, but noble Lords will have heard those names, Saturday after Saturday. I ask the Minister to consider new ways to improve the quality of teaching sport in schools.

I should also like to introduce the Minister to a programme that I have been involved with through my trusteeship of the Windward Islands Research and Education Foundation. With the enormous support of St George’s University, we launched in 2010 a programme called “Sport for Health” in the primary schools on the island of Grenada. In one year, this project has taken off so well that we are hoping for a gold medal in 2012. The prospective gold medallist is a champion for the project. Also, many footballers of Caribbean origin are working with us. Our patron is Garth Crooks, and he is very much a working patron.

There is considerable evidence of the adverse effects of non-communicable disorders on the quality of life. Those disorders should not be an inevitable burden on society, given that it would cost so little to attach sport to school programmes on healthy diets. Already, those pupils in Grenada are using sport to reduce obesity and other non-communicable diseases. Let us shift the paradigm through healthy eating—which we already encourage in schools—and add sport for health. There is no disgrace in dying healthily. Let us go for gold in our schools.