St Mary’s University Receives More Than £150k to Get Students Active

Students at St Mary’s University, Twickenham will have more chances to play sport thanks to £152,000 of National Lottery funding from Sport England’s University Sport Activation Fund. St Mary’s is one of 54 universities to benefit from nearly £10 million funding to help get 180,000 new university students playing sport. The money, which will be delivered over three years, will allow the University to develop a new student sport scheme called SIMMSActive. The scheme will provide a wide range of easy to access, weekly recreational activities aimed at increasing student participation. St Mary’s Director for Sport Andrew Reid-Smith commented, “This support from Sport England will help develop the sporting offer available to St Mary’s University students. The SIMMSActive scheme represent the kind of sessions our students want, they will be student led, informal and fun, aimed at getting as many students as possible involved.” Voted as one of London’s top sporting universities, St Mary’s already offers a number of student sports clubs and has recently developed a programme of more informal sporting opportunities such as the pay as you play futsal and badminton sessions. This additional Sport England Funding will allow the University to further develop this provision, creating a more formalised programme of weekly events. Sport England Director of Community Sport, Mike Diaper, said, “We know universities play a vital role in maintaining and growing a student’s love of sport. They can encourage them to continue playing once they’ve left school or help those less sporty discover a new sport. By investing in St Mary’s University we’re helping students develop a lifelong sporting habit while they study.” Currently just over half (52 per cent) of higher education students take part in sport at least once a week. The funding will support projects to not only maintain this level of participation but also increase it by trialling new methods of getting students into sport and offering a wider variety of opportunities to keep them playing sport during their time at university. The projects will particularly concentrate on those that do not currently play. It will also help tackle the issue of many young people giving up sport in their late teens and early twenties. Karen Rothery, Chief Executive of British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS), said, “Universities have really risen to the challenge to increase sport participation, firstly through Active Universities, and now through the University Sport Activation Fund. We at BUCS are delighted that our work with Sport England over the past five years has resulted in such a success story, and are confident that we will continue to enhance the student experience through sport in many creative ways throughout the life of the University Sport Activation Fund delivery.” The latest funding for university sport builds on Sport England’s highly successful three year ‘Active Universities’ programme which delivering a 2 per cent rise in the number of students playing sport regularly at the 41 university projects we invested in.