School sport in Czech Republic: Asociace školních sportovních klubů
“We believe that school sport should be about having fun together. ”The motto of School Sports Clubs Association of Czech Republic follows the rule of an enjoyable and inclusive sport.
This year AŠSK ČR (Asociace školních sportovních klubů) hosted the World Schools Championships in volleyball, an international competition for youth players of age 15-18. The association stuck to their vision of organising events in a way the whole school and its youth get engaged in the process: from competing to helping with organisation, and most importantly, to learn from it.
Youth is also included in all media and Opening Ceremony related activities, such as performing the anthem, reporting, interviewing, etc. They encourage the students to cheer on and support each other regardless of the school they come from.
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“We believe school sport is a cornerstone which determines child´s future attitude towards the sport, and by doing all of this we want to bring fun back to schools and give school sport a better image.”
AŠSK ČR strategy to develop school sport further is to focus on engaging pupils in sport throughout the whole school period. They organize diverse sports competitions for youth of different age categories.
The goal is to focus more on unification of the overall program of chosen national competitions: all of the events having a sport celebrity as a patron/ambassador which will motivate the youth, all of them having similar opening ceremonies and being broadcasted to Czech national sports television, etc.
By unification and raising the quality, AŠSK ČR wants to give school sports activities a more prestigious profile.
Furthermore, they want to focus on providing better service to school sport coaches and PE teachers, for example by preparing easy tips for diverse and fun activities with children (such as “5 ways how to do an unusual and fun warm up”, etc).
With the upcoming school year, AŠSK ČR is planning to start a new project – School Sports League for Primary Schools and High Schools.
They have already been organizing School Sports League for secondary schools – the project ends every school year by organizing final national championships in 7 sports (floorball, handball, basketball, volleyball, minifootball, athletic and swimming). Each of the national championships is organized in a similar way and supposed to reach a level of senior competitions. The event is broadcasted by the national Czech sports TV and commented by professional reporters and sports experts. Every competition also has its own sport ambassador which is present during the competition to support and interact with the youth.
Every school year more than 150 thousand children participate at School Sports League for secondary schools. AŠSK ČR plan is to incorporate the mentioned high quality project into other age categories – for the children in primary schools and the students in high schools.
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