Essay: Understanding Sport Development and Social Policy in the UK

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of sport development and social policy within the United Kingdom. It begins by defining sport development as a tool to bring positive change to individual lives and communities, emphasizing its role in encouraging long-term participation. The essay reviews the UK's social policy in the context of sport development, referencing 'Sporting Future', the new strategy for an active nation, and highlighting its focus on physical and mental wellbeing, individual and community development, and economic growth. It explores the impact of this policy on various demographic groups, including women, disabled individuals, and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. The essay also examines various approaches to sport development, including top-down and bottom-up strategies, and discusses the roles of organizations such as Sport England and the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, reiterating the benefits of sport development, the importance of social policy, and the significance of initiatives like those by Sports England and the UK government. The essay highlights the importance of sports in improving the quality of life for individuals and fostering community cohesion.

Sport is also good for us

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................1
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................2

Essay Title: Understanding Sport Development and how ‘Sport is also good for us’.
INTRODUCTION
‘Sport is also good for us’ it means sports is considered to be useful for the individual to
engage in physical activity which is useful in improving the wellbeing and health of the
individual person. It is relevant in controlling weight and also improves health condition of the
individual person. This study will focus on effectively reviewing the social policy in association
with the sport development within UK. It also demonstrates the key benefits related with the
current policy paper for the individual and community. Furthermore, this study will also include
range of approaches associated with Sport Development within UK.
MAIN BODY
Reviewing the Social Policy in context of Sport Development within UK.
Sports development is referred to as the intentional use of the physical activity and ports
which in turn tends to act as a significant tool in order to effectively bring positive change in
individual lives and also communities (Delaney and et.al., 2018). One of the key purpose of the
sports development is that, it is useful in encouraging long- term participation for individual and
entire community. Sports is also good for us’ – As per David Cameron’s Sporting Future which
is a New Strategy for an Active Nation states that, national policy is considered to be as a part of
national identity (NEW STRATEGY FOR AN ACTIVE NATION, 2020). The UK has been
renowned for the love of sports. Millions of us play it and watch it. A new strategy for active
action mainly tends to focus on five key outcomes which mainly includes physical wellbeing,
individual development, mental wellbeing, economic development and social and community
development. Sports is linked with all types of physical activity through organised and casual
participation tends to effectively aim at improving the physical fitness and also enhance the
mental wellbeing, improving social relationships and also obtaining results with competition at
varied levels. There are range of demographic groups who tends to engage in sports and also
physical activity is below national average. However, the benefit of engaging such groups that
does little activity is vast. This strategy helps in distributing findings to focus on people like
women, disabled people, and also individuals who belong to lower socio economic groups who
cannot be a part of sports. This approach is considered to be prominent in effectively
transforming the way they tend to measure success (Kumar and et.al., 2019). New effective set
of KPI has been used which helps in testing progress associated with the sports. This social
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policy is relevant in effectively better reflecting the key values associated with strong and broad
engagement within sports. This policy is also relevant in effectively enhancing the contribution
of the sports towards the economy.
Social policy is considered to be beneficial for both individual as well as community. Sport
is considered to be as one of the integral part of the local community. They are one of the
prominent public sector investor within sports which tends to spend £1bilion every year. The key
understanding of the communities helps in enabling to effectively target key opportunities and is
also useful in encouraging mass participation. Cricket delivers in effectively improving the
community cohesion and also continue to raise standards within the sports. Sports is useful in
keeping the communities together and is considered to be as a persuasive tool which helps to
promote the shared interest. This policy is also highly beneficial for the individual because it
encourages more people from every background to take part in sports on a regular basis.
The sports and the recreational alliance which is formerly referred to as Central Council for
Physical Recreation is considered to be as a representative body for the national sport
organization with UK. It is a prominent body for recreation and sports (Felfe, Lechner and
Steinmayr, 2016). The voluntary sectors plays one of the key prominent role in within the sports
industry. The voluntary sector in turn is considered to be as the key provider of the sporting
opportunity and also focuses on the key development of the sports. This eventually leads to
increased degree of participation through supporting excellence and also focuses on the elite
performance. Sports England tends to use the national lottery funding in order to earn awards
between £300 and £10,000 to statutory bodies or not for profit companies in order to help more
young people and helps in keeping sporting as a habit (NEW STRATEGY FOR AN ACTIVE
NATION, 2020).. Sports England key vision is that, everyone within England regardless of
background, ability, and age intends to take part in sports. Sports England intends to focus on
improving UK’s long term physical health and also ensures that people can also be benefit.
Department for the culture, media and sports intends to focus on effectively improving the
quality of life of the individual people who belong to varied culture and engage in sports
activities. This is relevant in supporting pursuit of excellence (Rowe, 2015). This is a new youth
sport strategy which helps in inspiring young generation in order to take up sports as one of the
significant habit. Sports as a habit of life can be created usually by building lasting legacy for
competitive sports within schools, improving significant level of link between community and
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school sports club, invest in facilities, work with the voluntary sector and communities and also
investing in facilities.
Examining range of approaches associated with Sport Development within UK.
Development within the sports can be significantly created using top down and bottom up
approach. A top down theory has been significantly based on the top down theory which is
usually based on the hierarchical structure and mainly emphasize on the decision making
process. It tends to have greater set of likelihood in order to attain high degree of likelihood to
attain common goals and objectives (Nichols and et.al., 2015). This mainly focuses on
effectively trickling down the effect and tends to make high degree of realms within the vision
possible. A bottom up theory is also considered to be relevant in effectively gaining progressive
set of development within the sports.
International partnership programmes is considered to be as the key pioneer UK sport
initiative that is useful for the NGB in effectively building strong strategic relation. This is
usually done through collaborative partnerships. This programme is considered to be prominent
in effectively enhancing the sporting objectives and also tends to contribute in meaningfully
contributing towards the development within the international sports. This programme is highly
relevant as it is useful in developing high quality, inclusive and safe sport environment.
Sports England initiative is considered to be highly prominent as it is useful in encouraging
more teens to be a part of sports. The sports initiative taken in the UK are play services, health
community, education and youth services (Teixeira. and Ribeiro, 2016). The key partners
associated with the initiative and sports programmes are schools and communities. All the
initiatives has been taken outdoor and within the sports premises. Sport policy is considered to be
as the key national policy which has been complied by within the UK. This is useful in outlining
the direction of the sport. Policy has been significantly developed by the national government
and also the key sports organization which is useful in guiding sports within the specified desired
direction.
The overall outcomes associated with the initiative within the community of sport
development is considered to be of utmost importance as it leads to community sports
development (Milistetd and et.al., 2016). UK sports tends to have a very clear set of remit at top
end of Britain to ensure that sports becomes the part of every individual’s life. This is considered
to be useful in effectively redefining the sports and is useful in living a healthy lifestyle. This is
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significant for the community and individual development. It is useful in bringing positive
change and also measure the success of the sports which leads to greater economic development.
CONCLUSION
From the conducted study it has been summarized that, sports development is useful in
encouraging long- term participation for individual and entire community. As per David
Cameron’s Sporting Future which is a New Strategy for an Active Nation states that, national
policy is considered to be as a part of national identity. Social policy is considered to be
beneficial for both individual as well as community. This is a new youth sport strategy which
helps in inspiring young generation in order to take up sports as one of the significant habit.
Development within the sports can be significantly created using top down and bottom up
approach. Sports England initiative and Sport policy is considered to be as the key national
policy which has been complied by within the UK. The overall outcomes associated with the
initiative within the community of sport development is of utmost importance as it leads to
community sports development.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Delaney, J.A and et.al., 2018. Quantifying the relationship between internal and external work in
team sports: development of a novel training efficiency index. Science and Medicine in
Football. 2(2). pp.149-156.
Felfe, C., Lechner, M. and Steinmayr, A., 2016. Sports and child development. PloS one. 11(5).
p.e0151729.
Kumar, H and et.al., 2019. Means as well as ends: some critical insights for UK sport policy on
the impact of facility ownership and configuration on sports participation. International Journal
of Sport Policy and Politics. 11(3). pp.415-432.
Milistetd, M and et.al., 2016. Coaches’ development in Brazil: Structure of sports organizational
programmes. Sports Coaching Review. 5(2). pp.138-152.
Nichols, G and et.al., 2015. Measuring the formalization of community sports clubs: Findings
from the UK, Germany and Australia. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 7(2),
pp.283-300.
Rowe, N.F., 2015. Sporting capital: a theoretical and empirical analysis of sport participation
determinants and its application to sports development policy and practice. International journal
of sport policy and politics. 7(1). pp.43-61.
Teixeira, M.R. and Ribeiro, T.M., 2016. Sport policy and sports development: Study of
demographic, organizational, financial and political dimensions to the local level in
Portugal. The Open Sports Sciences Journal. 9(1).
Online
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