Hungarian School Sport Federation (HSSF) is the biggest civil organization in Hungarian youth sport education.
The Federation, founded in 1987 went through a major transformation in 2012, extending its mission beyond school sport: HSSF decided to support teachers to implement quality physical education, and to promote health development through regular physical education. The mission of our organisation is therefore significantly wider today than before: the main goal is to increase the number of children who are actively involved in physical activity programs and promote the concept of health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA).
HSSF also participates in promoting values like volunteering and social integration through physical activity. To effectively follow these goals, we are also keen to further strengthen our international activities. Today, HSSF is member of International School Sport Federation (ISF), International Sport and Culture Association (ISCA), Federation Internationale d’Education Physique (FIEP) and European Physical Education Association (EUPEA).The representative of HSSF also acts as national focal point for health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA).
HSSF keeps regular contact with almost every single Hungarian public school and approximately 8000 physical education teachers through its members. Each year, the Federation organizes the unique, comprehensive sport competition, the Student Olympics, which has an outstanding role in the national talent management system since decades. Every year, nearly 300000 students are participating in our sport events. Beyond children and teachers, policy makers are also targeted by our activities, as we are actively advocating to ensure the Hungarian state’s involvement in promoting HEPA and healthy lifestyle. Colleagues of ours also participated in the development of the Hungarian National Core Corriculum and the frame curricula for physical education.
Despite these diverse activities, the Federation’s philosophy remains simple: we shall establish the opportunity for all children to participate in sports beyond school P.E., and we shall promote to make exercise part of the daily routine.
The Federation promotes P.E. and sports as activities that shall not be the privilege of the most talented, but opportunities for lifelong physically active life to everyone.
3 years ago HSSF started a process to embed thematic sport education into the public education system based on the principles of quality physical education. Our idea was to create alternative curricula for the sport and establish in-service trainings for teachers in the given sport and the new approach. Today we are already working together with 4 national associations.
Based on the multiple positive affirmations, HSSF continues to expand its commitment to promote health enhancing physical activity, the concept of volunteering and social inclusion through sport and the outstanding role of school sport in various international platforms.
In 2016, HSSF received the accreditation to be able to participate in the large-scale European ex-change programme, European Voluntary Service, which opens new possibilities to engage volunteers and to build an even more active professional network in the field of European school sport. Also this year, we successfully hosted the ISF’s World Schools’ Championships (WSC) in cross-country and we are already geared up to host the next years’ swimming WSC.
In addition to all these, HSSF is proud to present the second edition of our biannual international conference on quality physical education in November 2016, named HIPE for HEPA.
