Guest Blog by Kyle Hewitt – Active Schools Aberdeen

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Over the past year I have been using Boccia as what I call my ‘gateway sport’. Working with targeted groups with outcomes based on Team work, Confidence and Mental Health. In this time, I have worked with multiple pupils on a one to one or small groups capacity from the schools growing target support department. During the year I have used Boccia to engage the young people initially those whom shy away from mainstream sports and/or those sports and physical activities which feature a higher level of variability and higher level of cognitive load (organised chaos). This can often deter individuals from accessing all that sport and physical activity has to offer, particularly the learning of important and transferable life-skills and the ever more important mental and physical health benefits.

At its basic level Boccia is easy to pick up and play for those who have never played and teachers and staff who have no prior knowledge of the game. It feels welcoming and friendly, it’s not scary or threatening, yet it can be fiercely competitive. It has the ability of developing hand eye coordination, weight of pass, communication, resilience and a sense of achievement when individuals often improve over the course of a single session. It truly is inclusive it can be played with many adaptations and variations and can be played just about anywhere, which has been a great thing particularly this year with so many restrictions impeding P.E. and all of life in general.

Boccia has been a leveller at the academy level with basketball or other sports if you have a few players at even above average in skill sets and some below average it is easier for individuals to get bored and disengage at both ends of the ability scale. I have seen none of this with Boccia: the physically gifted and those less so are closer in this game and yet everyone gets a high level of enjoyment from it and anyone can be successful. (I have lost many times this year to the young people, which they love).

Boccia has also blurred lines between social groups with young people (even a very mixed S4 girls group) who would sit segregated in a class room setting! Around a boccia kit they can laugh and smile (obvious even with masks on), chat and play and get on even if just for 30 minutes. The conversational element around a session of Boccia has also been a fantastic asset in getting to know young people and finding other likes that can be explored, building rapport, trust as well as goal setting in physical activity, sport and the wider curriculum.

Over the year the success of Boccia has been food for thought and we have ordered more kits for those groups so we can play more and develop our skills. We have plans to use it in supporting transitions from P7 to S1 but most excitingly the P.E. department has now ordered their own kits and have discussed the benefits and the potential at engaging more people including those who have struggled to engage in the past and also for Boccia to be used for course work in to National units and even Highers.

Boccia has had so many positives and I can guarantee I am overlooking many of the benefits and positives that this sport has had on our lives this year. This is a general wide account however there are many individual success stories that can be credited to Boccia and we are just getting started. We can have future leaders of boccia developing leadership skills and confidence that may not have been possible without this sport.

Scottish Disability Sport, in partnership with Ayrshire Sportsability and RNIB, are holding an information meeting on Friday 23^rd April at 11am.  If you have sight loss, are over 18 and live in Ayrshire please join the call and chat to us about activities that are already taking place and potential ones you would like to take part in.

To sign up for the session which will be over Microsoft Teams, please contact Susan Burn susan.burn@rnib.org.uk, and for more information please contact Susan, Lynn lynn.allison@scottishdisabilitysport.com or Dianne admin@ayrshiresportsability.org.uk.

ASA has been working with the schools and Active schools Managers and have identified families who would benefit from a grant to help pay for food or heating, over 20 families were identified and £2000 was given out in grants. This was done with support from STV appeal welfare fund.

With help from our partner organisations we have also donated 400 individual activity packs to individuals all over Ayrshire and 100 group packs to schools and local colleges. The packs consisted of the SDS activity cards which we printed and laminated, a ball, a tennis ball, a balloon and a list of adaptions from household items to show families that they do not need to have sports equipment to stay active whilst we are all in lockdown.  We have been delivering these packs over the past few weeks.

ASA has received grants from the Community Recovery Fund and The Trefoil Trust which will ensure activity can provided when restrictions allow.

Over the last couple of months Dumfries and Galloway Disability Sport branch have been working hard to keep our athletes engaged and physically active during the latest lockdown restrictions and the winter months.

To keep active safely we have  . . .. .

January Miles Challenge

With plans to start some weekly sessions put on hold, we started the year positively by planning a January Miles Challenge.  How many miles can we collectively complete in the month of January and where can we virtually travel too!   This challenge was available for all our athletes and their families to take part in and involved any active method of travel such as walking, running, cycling, horse riding etc to get their miles total.  Each participant who entered received their daily miles tracker sheet to keep track of all their miles throughout the month and at the end of the month, all miles were added together to create our grand total!    With over 60 athletes and their families taking part, everyone did amazing, working together as a team to achieve an incredible collective mileage of 2421.08 miles! So where could we travel to???  After working out the miles, as a team we could travel from Dumfries to the North Pole!!

The January Challenge was very well received by our athletes and their families.  Through the feedback we have from our athletes, all who participated highlighted that the January Miles Challenge increased their physical activity.  We also received the following feedback from some of our athletes and parents:

 “I had the incentive to walk further because it was a challenge.”

 “Kept us healthy and helped cheer us up.”

“It was nice for Eleanor to be part of something in the current times.”

“The challenge helped us tone up and I lost a couple of pounds! Also kept my sanity on days which were hard going.”

February Fun Bingo & Miles Challenge

Following on from our January Challenge we launched our February Fun Bingo Challenge, an individual challenge where each participant received their own bingo sheet which had 25 exercises on it with the aim to try and complete as many as they can within the month of February.  The challenge was entirely up to the individual, they could aim to do 1 exercise per day or 1 exercise per week and see if they can, complete 1 line or 2 lines of the sheet or see if they can complete all the challenges for a full house!  We also continued with our miles challenge for the month of February to encourage everyone to keep getting out and about, staying active and counting the miles they complete for the month and we will see if we can beat our January total!  Our February challenge was again very successful with 53 athletes and their families signed up to take part.  At the end of our February challenge athletes were able to see how many lines of the bingo they had completed with some even managing a full house, and we counted our miles as a team for the month of February.  With a high total to try and beat from January our February Miles did amazing and although we didn’t beat our January total, we did travel 2,227.5 miles, which was brilliant and virtually we could travel from Dumfries to Cyprus!

Again, our February bingo and miles challenges were very engaging for our athletes and their families and the feedback we have so far is very positive, with some examples as follows:

“I walk everyday just now so the challenge gave me a focus to set goals for myself.”

“Good, looking forward to the next challenge.”

March Wordsearch Challenge . . .

With the great feedback we have received from our previous challenges we have keep our challenges going and have a new challenge just launched for March, our March Wordserch Challenge.   While out staying active, increasing your miles we are asking our athletes and families if they can complete the wordsearch of D&G Special Olympic Sports.  The words can be made up form an item, building, place, nature etc We are also going to keep track of our miles for March and again see if we can beat our January and February totals.  Our March Challenge is now live on our Facebook page and we look forward to seeing everyone staying active again during the month.

Zoom Catch Up and Activities . . .

We have been keeping in contact with athletes, parents, coaches and volunteers through our Zoom catch up and activities.  These sessions are held every second week on a Tuesday and help keep everyone in contact through our catch up and fun sessions.  To date we have held a quiz which was organised and delivered by our athlete Lennon Hughes and a treasure hunt organised by Laura Vickers.  We have another couple of sessions due to take place over the next few weeks and we look forward to seeing everyone on our zoom calls.

All education students attending the University of Aberdeen will now enter the workplace having undergone training to include children with disabilities in physical education sessions thanks to a partnership between Active Schools, PE specialists and Scottish Disability Sport.

Building on existing positive work by Active Schools Aberdeen to improve PE provision within the degree programme, Scottish Disability Sport was able to gain access to the 3^rd year students and have devised a timeline of training opportunities with UoA staff.

Initially, students will complete an innovative new e-learning module available soon through Scottish Disability Sport. They will then participate in a joint webinar with Active Schools, PE Specialists with an additional support needs remit, and Scottish Disability Sport staff to aid their learning & learn more about wider inclusion and PE resources. Our next stage is to implement the full Disability Inclusion Training workshop into the 4^th year syllabus to ensure every student has comprehensive knowledge and confidence to provide a positive and high quality PE experience to all of the children in their care.

If you, or anyone you know, lives with a physical, sensory or learning disability in Grampian or Shetland & is interested in getting involved in sport, please get in touch with Alison on alison.shaw@scottishdisabilitysport.com or 07828 744 848.

Specialist powerchair football equipment in Grampian is being kept secure thanks to national funding.

Funding from the Baillie Gifford Community Awards (administered by Foundation Scotland) was granted to Grampian Disability Sport to purchase a secure, lockable cage in which to store multiple strikers and powerchair football balls.

The equipment, with a 4-figure value, had been stored in a multi-sport cupboard with open access, and the participants and coach felt that there was a risk that the equipment could be stolen or damaged by other groups and clubs frequenting the store. The new storage unit will only be accessible by the powerchair football group and as it’s also on wheels, the group will be able to transport and set up their equipment far more efficiently and safely.

We’re incredibly grateful to the Baillie Gifford Community Awards and Foundation Scotland for their generosity.

If you, or anyone you know, lives with a physical, sensory or learning disability in Grampian or Shetland & is interested in getting involved in sport, please get in touch with Alison on alison.shaw@scottishdisabilitysport.com or 07828 744 848.