University receives £116,000 for student sport

The University is one of 54 universities to benefit from nearly £10 million of funding to help get nearly 180,000 new students playing sport.

The Try It, Love It, Live It project delivers six key sports - basketball, football (including disability football), badminton, volleyball, cricket and table tennis - where students can just turn up and play, and are also given the ways and means to continue with activity throughout the duration of their university life and beyond. A mix of sessions will be held on a weekly basis at both Wolverhampton and Walsall campuses.

The project has received £116,000 over a three-year period starting in October from Sport England’s University Sport Activation Fund. The total cost of the project is £180,000 with the rest of the funding from the University.

Kay Biscomb, Director of the University’s Institute of Sport, said: “We are delighted that our bid has been successful. This is a new development for the Institute of Sport and demonstrates our commitment to enhancing the student sporting experience at the University of Wolverhampton.”

The project will also include training of students to become coaches, volunteers, activators and officials to not only lead these sessions but to also develop skills within committee type roles to enable the sessions to grow. The aim is for the students to become even more involved in the running of the sessions, increasing their employability and life skills.

It will be co-ordinated by the University’s Institute of Sport with the creation of a new full-time post of Sports Participation Officer who will work closely with the Students’ Union and outside national governing bodies and organisations to assist with the implementation of the plan.

Sport England Director of Community Sport, Mike Diaper, said: “We know universities play a vital role in maintaining and growing a student’s love of sport. They can encourage them to continue playing once they’ve left school or help those less sporty discover a new sport. By investing in the University of Wolverhampton we’re helping students develop a lifelong sporting habit while they study.”

Currently just over half (52 per cent) of higher education students nationally take part in sport at least once a week. The funding will support projects to not only maintain this level of participation but also increase it by trialling new methods of getting students into sport and offering a wider variety of opportunities to keep them playing sport during their time at university.

The projects will particularly concentrate on those that do not currently play. It will also help tackle the issue of many young people giving up sport in their late teens and early twenties.

ENDS

For more information please contact Vickie Warren in the Media Relations Office on 01902 322736.

Date Issued: Thursday, 26 June 2014