Summer 2020 did not see our regular Sports Camps delivered across Blackpool due to Covid 19 and the Government Guidance in place at the time.
That being said, we were proud to be able to work in partnership with Blackpool Public Health and Blackpool Council to deliver a number of new physical activity clubs and activity sessions as part of Blackpool Summer of Fun.
The summer initiative was designed to provide free physical activity and mental stimulation to primary and secondary aged children, who have been affected by the national lockdown and increased inactivity as a result.
Summer of Fun also provided a free meal for every participant to ensure children that are usually on free school meals were still gaining access to a healthy meal and easing the financial cost from some families. With support from Blackpool Council we were able to provide and distribute free meals for all the 161 participants that attended our sessions.
Our summer clubs and activity sessions were delivered at several locations spanning the length of Blackpool and were aimed at supporting targeted children and key worker families post lockdown, through the summer holidays.
The pre booked sessions offered children aged 5 to 16 the opportunity to take part in multiple activities ranging from; football, dodgeball and table tennis, to arts and crafts, all within their designated bubbles.
Our three activity camps ran for three days a week at Revoe Learning Academy, Westminster Academy and Highfield Leadership Academy, alongside our nine weekly community sessions based at Stanley Park, Moor Park, @theGrange and South Shore Academy.
This means we were able to provide 108 free activity sessions to Blackpool families over the full six weeks of the summer holidays.
After evaluating our summer provision we discovered that 53% of the children that were questioned would have been ‘doing nothing or at home’ if they didn’t have access to the activity provision, 25% admitted that if they were not with us they would have spent the day ‘playing on their consoles or watching TV’ and only 9% would have been active by ‘playing out’ if they were not on camp.
The summer sessions were accessed by 118 boys and 43 girls across all venues with a total of 1566 visits.
Parent 1: “Thank you for making our COVID summer holiday as normal as possible and for making it as stress free as it can be for us key worker families.”
Parent 2: “A big thank you to all the staff teaching at Revoe summer camp. My son has loved every minute of it, he’s made new friends and loves football more and more.”
Rosie Newton, Sports Camp Lead said “We would like to thank everyone that attended our Summer sessions and we hope we will be in a position to provide more school holiday activity provision this October”.
