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Are we Valuing the Wrong Resource?

Posted Tuesday, 25 April 2023

The last thirty years has seen a revolution in school sports facilities. In every sector, expenditure has mushroomed, with the evidence everywhere. Artificial pitches, sports halls, swimming pools, fitness gyms and running tracks have appeared in schools of all types. No longer are they confined to a small number of...

PADSIS Research into Reward Models for School Sport

Posted Thursday, 8 December 2022

School sport requires a significant workforce to ensure a vibrant co-curricular provision. The historic assumption of staff contribution based upon goodwill and generous discretionary effort is in terminal decline. There are pockets of good health, but the general trend is a downwards one. This results partly from changing attitudes to...

PADSIS Research into Reward Models for School Sport

Posted Wednesday, 7 December 2022

School sport requires a significant workforce to ensure a vibrant co-curricular provision. The historic assumption of staff contribution based upon goodwill and generous discretionary effort is in terminal decline. There are pockets of good health, but the general trend is a downwards one. This results partly from changing attitudes to...

Re-Considering Saturday School Sport

Posted Wednesday, 2 November 2022

Saturday fixtures have existed in schools as long as sport has been a feature. Initially a way of filling time in boarding schools, they were enthusiastically embraced by day schools, and have an unbroken history going back more than 100 years. They survived intact when many schools abandoned Saturday morning...

Book Review - ‘Batting’ James Knott and Andrew O’Connor

Posted Wednesday, 2 November 2022

This is an extraordinary book. Its sub-title describes it as a ‘comprehensive modern guide’, and it certainly delivers on this promise. It is the most thorough analysis of all aspects of batting; in an age when coach education is less frequently delivered in book form, this may never be rivalled...

Staffing the Future of Saturday Sport

Posted Thursday, 6 October 2022

Saturdays have changed significantly in independent schools in the last 30 years. Morning school has become a thing of the past, except in the fullest of boarding sectors. Its loss was little bemoaned. However, other dimensions of Saturday school – principally sports fixtures – remain intact. There may be more...