A cricketing comeback
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30 / 06 / 2008 | Author: dnorris
A cricketing come back.
Cricket is played on open spaces. But open spaces of land are something that many schools in England simply do not have.
In the race to make schools adhere to commercial values in the Thatcher Era, school governors’ were given greater power to run schools. Performance League tables were introduced. They disclosed the examination results of each school. Achievement, which in reality meant academic achievement, was everything. A hard nosed business attitude was imposed on the running of a school.
A less conspicuous casualty was the land used for playing sport. These were seen as being of only marginal significance. The school curriculum expanded in Maths, English and Science. Sport lost out and many playing fields were sold off in order to re-equip schools with such items as I.T. suites.
Now the pendulum is beginning to swing the other way, but of course it is not possible to buy back the land which has been built on.
Cricket, in the guise of a campaign called ‘a chance to shine’ is seen as a team sport like no other. It is the ultimate team game because it demands both individual and collective responsibility.
Cricket insists upon high standards of conduct and provides good role models.
In the course of ten years the campaign aims to reach a third of the schools in England and Wales. It also aims to engage with 2 million young people.
So how can it possibly do that when schools don’t have much more than a tiny playground?
The ‘chance to shine’ campaign is broken down into individual projects which revolve around the activities of one cricket club and a cluster of 6 schools located in the vicinity of that cricket club.
It is an imaginative plan.
Coaches are assigned to provide 300 hours of their time to the 6 designated schools in the summer term. Schools have to sign up to a 5 match season. Clubs open up their own grounds and practice areas and in turn schools get non turf pitches and playground markings.
In 2006 400 coaches delivered over 20,000 coaching hours. There were over 5000 inter school matches and the vast majority of schools taking part had ceased to offer cricket on the curriculum.
The graph of improvement continued throughout 2007.The number of children taking part jumped to 99,000 children. The number of coaching hours clocked up rose to 44,000 and as a result nearly 10,000 matches were played.
The highlight for many children is the summer camp. There is no shortage of big names involved in these. Ashley Giles and Gladstone Small ran the Birmingham Camp. Michael Vaughan gives talks on playing in Test Matches. Wasim Khan acts as operations director for the whole ‘chance to shine’ programme.
In educational terms they all see cricket as a sport that builds the foundations of strategic thinking.
It also nurtures qualities of leadership. Finally it has the unique quality of being a game for the individual intertwined with the need to be a member of a team, which in this case comprises of young people.
It is all very commendable. The sad thing is that nobody said all of these things when the sports fields were being sold off in the first place.
