English Schools' Football Association

The following is a paper delivered on the 01 of December to the FA Development Committee by the Development Staff; however, in the light of the Prime Minister’s comments of the 02 December this may already be out of date.

Introduction
As you will be aware with the recent changes in Government there will be a significant impact on the way PE and Sport, including football will be delivered post 2010-11 academic year. This document has been prepared to outline how The FA is responding to the changes; as well as providing an overview of what is fact and what is fiction as presented by the Youth Sport Trust at the recent NGB briefing.

Response to CSR
The FA have formed a Children and Young People steering group that includes officers from the Education funded partners ISFA – Sean Smith, ESFA - Mike Spinks, BCS – Karl Lines and BUCS – George Carney and Cai Robbins, and FA staff who are national leads on work in education as listed below;

Donna McIvor – National Football Development Manager (Education)
Steve Swallow – Education Project officer
Martin Preston – Skills coach Project Manager
Roger Davies – National Coaching in Education Manager
Janie Frampton – National Referee Development Manager
James Watkins – Disability Project officer
Additionally the group is supported by Acting Senior National Game Delivery Manager Lucy Wellings.

The purpose of the steering group is to update the current CYP framework to ensure it is fit for purpose and clearly articulates “footballs offer” from the Skills programme to club links to the Referee development programme. It will also clearly outline the support we would like from our partners to ensure we are able to deliver the offer at a County FA level. This group will meet on a quarterly basis to oversee the implementation of the offer nationally and ensure The FA is in a position to respond to any changes in education that may occur in the future.

National partners
The draft framework will be discussed with Sport England and The YST before the end of the year. The next step will then be to pilot in a number of counties in partnership with County Sport Partnerships to ensure our offer is deliverable. This will be early in the New Year. It is at this stage we will be in a position to share the draft offer with County FAs to gain your feedback to ensure you help shape the framework accordingly.

The outcome of this consultation and pilot phase will allow us to finalise our offer and include in the county planning guidance 2011-12.

Fact and Fiction
The following outlines the fact and fiction as outlined by the Youth Sport Trust and the recent NGB briefing post CSR:

Fact
1. DFE work strand funding gone

2. SSP infrastructure funding has gone

3. Specialist School funding de-ring fenced

Fiction

1. The end of SSPs? – The YST are currently undertaking a piece of work to map how many partnerships will choose continue without direct ring fenced funding. We should therefore be in a position by the end of the year to understand what the landscape will look like.

2. The end of Sports Colleges – No, the 501 Sports Colleges will not have to go through a re-designation process. Funding will go through Local Authority schools forums to decide how much schools receive. The implications maybe that they do not receive the same levels of funding.

3. The end of the YST – No, but significant downsizing with 80 staff at risk. No direct Government funding except for a role in the School Sport competition.

Education Policy context
There will be greater school freedom, more school diversity and more curriculum freedom. A White Paper is due out by the end of the year. The Government are keen to expand the Academy programme with every school becoming an Academy starting with the high performing schools. Further information will be provided on this in due course.

School Sport Policy
The new government sport policy is the lottery funded school sport competition that is split into four levels.

Level 1 – intra school sport – school sport days

Level 2 – inter school sport – school sport tournaments and leagues

Level 3 – school sport festivals – showcase of each county’s sportiest schools

Level 4 – school sport national games

This is currently being piloted led by the YST. Football has not been included in the pilot phase.

Although the governments single focus in schools and colleges is around competition this should be seen as “competition as a context”. The new proposals will be supported with a significant investment and provides an opportunity to continue to develop young leaders to help run teams, organise intra school competitions and referee matches as well as be a platform to help young people make the transition into the community and into clubs.

It is important to stress that we remain committed to delivering the National Game strategy and “Footballs CYP offer” will be positioned accordingly.