Pupils have been collecting signatures outside a Stone school for a national petition to save school sport partnerships.
The Department for Education has removed the funding for the partnerships, which offer sports programmes and specialist coaching in schools. The Stafford and Stone School Sport Partnership is set to end in April 2011, along with 449 others across England.
Pupils at St Michael’s First School in Weavers Lane have been collecting signatures this week from parents at the school gates, which will be added to a national petition set to be delivered to Education Secretary Michael Gove.
St Michael’s headteacher Mary Gale said: “Axing the funding for school sports partnerships will directly affect children and many initiatives and programmes will have to stop. The petition could get 1 million signatures across the country. If we can achieve this, we hope the Government will listen to the public’s concern and rethink their plans.”
Education Secretary Michael Gove said in October that the coalition’s focus was competitive sport. He wrote in an open letter: “I have concluded that the existing network of school sport partnerships is neither affordable nor likely to be the best way to help schools achieve their potential in improving competitive sport.
“While the network helped schools to increase participation rates in the areas targeted by the previous Government, the fact remains that the proportion of pupils playing competitive sport regularly has remained disappointingly low.”
