Active School Communities – ASC

The Active School Communities (ASC) project assisted the strengthening of the links between community sport organizations and school and established an innovative consortium that has the potential to influence how sport and physical activity initiatives are delivered in school and community-wide settings across Europe, so there are more young people getting active and enjoying the benefits of physical activity. Over the two-year ASC project more than 20 different experts from research institutions, the education sector and non-profit organizations in 10 European countries have worked to equip community sport organizations with an adaptable toolkit which they can use to collaborate more effectively with schools on physical activity initiatives. Research and evaluation of best practices in Europe established a set of criteria for Active School Communities, also taking into account examples of less successful initiatives that the community sport organizations could learn from. The learning points from collected examples and practical experience from a cross-sector group of experts underpinned the development of a toolkit and further resources, such as the ASC Policy recommendations. An Active Schools Communities (ASC) toolkit was designed to structure more productive conversations between schools and sports clubs that ultimately lead to a larger and better trained physical activity workforce, more active young people inside and outside school and a healthier, happier, and more cohesive community. The ASC toolkit was piloted and tested across the seven implementing countries. About 40 different local sport organizations became engaged in the ASC project activities and reached out for partnerships with almost 50 schools (more than 70% were primary schools). More than 4,000 children participated in over 200 single ASC course units, ranged each from 45 up to 180 minutes per week. The collaboration between the project partners and implementing partners from the assisting community sport organizations and their advocacy efforts facilitated more effective integration of the local community organizations, the primary schools and policy-makers to encourage more children across Europe to be engaged in health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA). One of the key messages passed through the ASC project activities was that providing physical education both inside (as an integral part of the curriculum or as an extracurricular school sport) or outside of schools is critical in helping young people to learn and develop life skills. The project objectives outlined below highlight the elements of the project that contributed to addressing the EU’s ambitions to enhance collaboration between education and grassroots sport sector.