the game

There are a number of specific advantages of 1-Wall Fives which, taken together, can be matched by no other alternative form of exercise for school children.

Facilities For All

The court design and simplicity of 1-Wall Fives means that on-site sports facilities for all London schools and an accessible community sport is already a reality. Design advantages of 1-Wall Fives include:

• Low cost of £10 to mark out a court so all schools can afford them
• Space advantages mean that courts can be market out anywhere and where other sports with larger playing areas cannot, so there is access for all
• Three court sizes mean that primary and secondary schools can have courts
• Low maintenance costs
• Courts make use of unused existing walls in schools

Participation For All

Specific advantages of 1-Wall Fives courts for increasing participation include:

• Fives can be played by all ages, both sexes and across all Key Stages
• Zero playing cost means that all can afford to play
• As courts can be placed anywhere transportation to courts is not an issue
Fives can be played as a sport in directed PE time
• Pupils can play in non-directed time, increasing time spent on extra-curricular sport

Improving Physical and Mental Development

Fives has a number of specific benefits which differentiate it from other sports:

• Improves hand-eye co-ordination, and general speed of reaction
• Pupils must use both hands and so develop both sides of the body equally
• It is almost completely safe, the threat of injury to players being minimal
• It can be entirely self-regulating, requiring no referee or umpire to oversee it
• Fives is the best all-round conditioner in terms of calories burned per hour (751), average heart rate (164 bpm), average oxygen intake (30.1) and average ventilation rate (85.9)

Solving Social Problems

• Accessibility means that Fives is a sport that can be played outside of school time when the risk of social exclusion is highest
• Experience from New York and the Westway Sports Centre show that Fives can help tackle social problems that might lead young people to social exclusion

The Reason For Increasing Sports Participation In London

Sport is key to the Government’s strategy for improving education and creating safer communities. The aim of Sport England’s new strategy ‘Game Plan’ is to:

The Government wanted 75% of all schools in London to be delivering two hours of high-quality PE and school sport per child per week by 2006. The London Sports Board wants sport and physical activity to be established within 18 neighbourhood renewal strategies and 50% of local authorities are setting up local partnerships to develop sport-related crime interventions by 2008.

These are all ambitious aims and to achieve this, the London Sports Board’s 2004-8 plan has identified three core policy proposals to achieve them:

• Maximise opportunities for sport and physical activity through effective and sustainable partnerships
• Help to overcome the barriers and enable excluded or hard-to-reach groups to participate in sport on a daily basis
• Maximise the opportunities for children and young people to make physical activity part of their everyday life, focusing on educational achievement and community settings

Key to all of the core policy proposals is the role of sports facilities. Unless there are inexpensive facilities available during PE lessons at school and after-school within the community, young people will not get the opportunity to participate.

The State of Sport Facilities In London’s Schools and Communities

The LSB admit that participation rates are dependent on access to quality facilities and that this is a particular problem for London’s schools. Inner city schools do not have the space for playing fields or other sports facilities. Nationally, 39% of teachers class their school sports facilities as inadequate and London’s school sports access is considerably worse than the national average.

Sports centres in London’s local communities are not much better and desperately need money to improve them. To bring London’s sports centres up to an acceptable standard will cost an average of £430,000 per centre. Lottery funding to change this is limited and the LSB says that

The impact this has on participation rates means that, without developing radically different ideas on how to achieve involvement in sporting activity, the goal of providing pupils with the amount of sport prescribed in the plan will remain elusive. 1-wall Fives could significantly overcome this problem.

The Impact On Participation Rates

Further fundamental problems with London’s sports facilities include:

• Many schools have to travel off-site for sports facilities. This is time inefficient and is a heavy charge on already tightly-stretched school budgets
• The traveling time also detracts from the 2 hour target set by the Government
• Furthermore, the lack of on-site sports facilities limits the range of extra-curricular sport and competitive school sports because sport is not readily available. It also means that a teacher is required to run the activity

This lack of space and money has an even bigger impact on sport in the community. If young people have to travel to their nearest sports centres to participate, because of a lack of space in the inner city, then the Government’s aim of widening participation and overcoming barriers with hard-to-reach groups is severely challenged. Two barriers are lack of transport and low disposable income. London contains ten of the poorest boroughs in the country where the highest proportion of disadvantaged groups are to be found. Young people in these communities will not be able to afford to use the facilities at a sports centre even if they get there.

Therefore, sport will not achieve its purpose of creating stronger and safer communities. Sports facilities must be abundant in the community and any requirement to travel will detract from the community feel of the sport and mean that fewer young people get the opportunity to participate. Sport will not have a community setting and will not be part of daily lives.

Competition

Competition for Fives comes from other extra-curricular activities, peer pressure and attitudes.

All schools run existing sports and arts activities and Fives will have to find a market for pupils amongst these activities. The targeted inner city schools and communities though generally lack the space for other sports such as football and cricket. Furthermore, these activities all require teacher supervision or an adult leader to run them. Fives can be played by pupils without supervision. The largest competitor is from peer pressure and attitudes. Young people spend 11.4 hours a week of their spare time watching DVDs, playing computer games and listening to music. Those concentrated in areas of high social deprivation are at risk of exclusion, crime, substance misuse and anti-social behaviour.

Research shows that sport can also be a crime reduction tool. Young people must be given the opportunity to play though and the CFA can reach them first in school PE lessons, which is why schools are being targeted. Once they have tried the sport, the availability of courts will mean they can play whenever they like. Experience in New York and at the Westway Sports Centre, London has shown that Fives can tackle social exclusion within these groups for which sport is especially popular.

The 1-Wall Fives Market

The unique selling points of space and low cost which 1-wall Fives possesses mean that it can have a significant impact on sports participation rates in all schools and communities across London, but especially in the poorest borough and those with the greatest shortage of space. It offers the realistic possibility of sport for all because it eradicates the need for large amounts of funding for sports facilities and the low playing cost means that everyone can participate. To mark out five courts in each of London’s primary and secondary schools would cost less than £50 per school, or £75,000 and a tennis ball can be bought for 50 pence. Compare this with the £182 million that Sport England has spent on building new facilities in London since 1995.

The biggest impact will be made in schools that have the fewest number of on-site sports facilities and the poorest borough, as these typically lack both funding and space. Through its partnership with Teach First, the CFA already has access to key influencers in the majority of secondary schools which are located in the ten poorest boroughs and can target them accordingly.

The availability of 1-wall Fives courts makes the possibility of creating safer communities a reality as well, as it is one sport that could be found in every community setting. 1-wall Fives is located in every one of New York’s inner city boroughs and has had a huge impact on reducing crime levels in these boroughs. The city’s 2,000 courts in schools and public parks mean that the Fives courts attract many from the local community, and as they are open all the time, Fives can be played at any time, without any need for supervision.