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HIDE BARS

giving kids a sporting chance

S.M.A.R.T. Foundation (Sports Management And Recreational Training)

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Our Story

About S.M.A.R.T Foundation

Sports Management And Recreational Training Foundation

 

Supporting those who escaped from academia to find acceptance

 

Understanding Competition  –  Personal Challenge

Around 2,000,000 kids leave school every year to join the 30% + of the UK population classified as functionally & digitally illiterate.
Poor or slow non-readers are, in effect, disabled by this exclusion from learning alongside their peers who are able to “access text” more fluently.

Join the S.M.A.R.T. Foundation DIGITAL HEALTH & LITERACY CAMPAIGN today to Give Kids A Sporting Chance of realising THEIR potential

With over 20 years experience in providing “peer approved inclusive activities” to wide ranging partners from schools to youth justice agencies, the S.M.A.R.T. Foundation is well placed to offer consultancy and advisory assistance to all kinds of organisations seeking to help those who otherwise would just be “Kickin Off”.

 

What can I do ?

 

donations

Play Me

Some interesting facts

Did You Know?

“In our beginnings, are our ends and, in our ends are our beginnings”
T. S. Elliot

66 %
Graduates: Two out of three graduates who do not get, at least a 2.1 Degree, have a reading rate of less than 240 words ?
28 %
Students: 28% of university students require glasses prescribed by the end of their course?
7 x Risk
Screen Fatigue: If, you wear glasses you have a seven fold increased risk of suffering Screen Fatigue ?
30 %
Reading: 30% + of the age diverse UK population have the reading of an 11 year old?

School leaver…

I started coming here coz I got kicked out of school. Then I used to run away from school and then get into loads of trouble.

Kickin’ Off

The SmartFoundation “Kickin’ Off” video explores the benefits, both for the kids and the organisations referring them, of what have been described as “positive, diversionary and preventive activities”. SmartFoundation is a focal point for that work.

Consequences

To try and teach them, sort of, responsibility for their actions is the main one that’s my aim: if I can teach them, you know, “…if I do A then B will happen and the consequence of that will be C and I don’t like that idea”, then hopefully they won’t do it…

Development

This is not treats for naughty boys, this is real, proper, esteem building activity. We have seen significant numbers of young people that so far haven’t achieved anything within the Youth Offending arena…really start moving forward in terms of their own personal development…

Tell ’em why!

We’re not about…telling them you can’t do this, you can’t do that… we’re about telling them why they shouldn’t. So like all the codes we have…in the workshop – because you will get hurt, not because the law says so, because these kids aren’t going to understand it from that point-of-view.

Reduced Exclusion

I guess that most pupils that are in this programme and other similar programmes would be excluded from school because their behaviour would be unacceptable in a school context and so we would have figures back to twice national figures if we did that.

Qualifications

I come here because I’d been kicked out of school. If I wouldn’t have come here, I’d have had no qualifications – nothing to be in a job (with).

Last chance

I’ve messed my life up this is my last chance, because there’s nowhere after this if I mess this up. I won’t get a job in what I want to do – college won’t accept me.

It helped

It helped me because I used to always get into trouble, and now I’ve came, I’ve got…I’ve learned a lot about engines, mechanical stuff and to use bikes properly.

A bit of space

Because they are given the room to have a little bit of time to themselves and then come back to their studies their attention span gradually increases and as that increases, so does their attendance level…the kids then start to realise what they need to do for themselves.

Motivating

The scheme is motivating for young people. The theme of motorcycles attracts their attention…they want to come on the programme, and, of course, they enjoy what they do here – the way that they are treated is a little bit different to schools.

Improved behaviour

As a result of the scheme we’ve seen kids whose behaviour has improved, who have wanted to start going back into main stream education…who actually want to attend this scheme whereas previously they wouldn’t have been able to get a proper routine.

Improved attendance

The feedback so far from the schools involved is that the pupils attend school much better. Attendance rates have gone up by up to 10% in some cases and also that the exclusion rates have fallen significantly.

Co-operation

Crucially, the scheme itself enables all of the agencies to work together effectively…We are one of the agencies that we think has gained most from it, and what’s really pleasing is the level of partnership working that goes on within the scheme.

Positive

Without the scheme we’d be struggling at the moment in terms of finding positive, diversionary and preventive activities, and what we have through this scheme is a focal point for that diversion and preventative work.

Crime and exclusion

There are definite links between excluded pupils and social problems such as theft, such as burglaries. The prison population is related quite strongly to those excluded from schools.

Not useless?

Fact is ‘arf the kids ‘ave been told they’re useless or they’re no good or they’re scum all their lives, so they going to start believing it.

Adult-friendly

Often the problem is that they don’t relate to the way schools treat them, and the way that they are treated here is a much more adult-friendly kind of way.

Not mainstream

I started off in a mainstream school and because of my behaviour I got moved into a special school for children with behavioural problems. And I used to come here, with them to do the motorbiking.

A different way

Well I got expelled from my schools and I like coming here because of the motorbikes, you get to take cars to bits and just work on computers and stuff like that.

Educational

We’ve done quite a lot of things about maths and education which you get here included as well as riding and stuff like mechanical work so you get education as well – its like two in one basically.