Agenda item

            The Board received a report of the Strategic Director, Health and Community which detailed how young skilled and talented sports participants were managed in Halton.

            It was reported that the Board had identified Skilled and Talented sports for a work programme and this report was to enable an introductory discussion on how the Board would like to proceed and how to look at that area in terms of topic work.

            The Board received a presentation from Gill McGough – Advisory Teacher for Sports and Physical Education and Sue Lowrie – Sports and Recreation Manager, which outlined processes for the gifted and talented young people in physical education and sport. It was advised that gifted and talented in PE and sport was one of the ten strands of the Physical Education and Sport Strategy for Young People (PESSYP) which had the overall aim of creating a world class system for physical education and sport.

            The Board was advised that the aim of the gifted and talented strand was to improve the recognition of and the support and provision for gifted and talented pupils in physical education and sport. Three key areas of work were outlined as follows:

• High quality – raising the quality of PE for gifted and talented young people;

• Support – ensuring appropriate personal development support for young talented performers in sport; and

• Raising the quality of coaching and competition for talented performers in sport.

            It was noted that pupils were recognised as talented when they demonstrated high level ability within the range of PE context or had the potential to do so. Specifically it was suggested that talented pupils excel in one or more of the following abilities that reflected the full range of PE, physical, social, personal, cognitive and creative. Descriptions of these elements were tabled at the meeting for Members’ consideration.

                        The Board was informed that teachers were given the skills to identify gifted and talented pupils and advised of how to develop their skills further. Work was also carried out in terms of leadership skills, coaching and competitions and there was also a disability sport focus where appropriate.

The Board raised queries as to how much the work into gifted and talented sports actually costs, where the funds for this came from and discussed whether it required mainstream funding. In response it was noted that the Skills Support Partnership received currently £300,000 from DCSF funding and there were also other small budgets. Members were advised that this information could be circulated to the Board.

                        The Board discussed various issues such as mechanisms for talent identification, the dangers of young talent slipping through the net, provision for development to maximise potential, opportunities available to participate at a high level and multi-disciplinary approaches to nurturing talent. After a lengthy discussion the Board felt that more information would be required to explore the skilled and talented sports system in more detail.

            RESOLVED: That a more detailed report be brought back to a future meeting on the approach to skilled and talented young sportspeople in Halton.