spogata

SpOGATA

Since the introduction of open all-day schools in North Rhine-Westphalia for school year 2003/04 and since the cooperation agreement between the NRW ministries at that time, the Ministry for Schools, Children and Youth (MSKJ NRW), the Ministry for Urban Development, Housing, Culture and Sport (MSWKS NRW) and the State Sport Federation of North Rhine-Westphalia (LSB NRW) in July 2003, the WGI has been associated with the topic Movement, games and sport at open all-day schools in the shape of jointly organised conferences, surveys, lectures and assessments. The WGI’s research reports for 2000-2003 and 2004-2006 already dealt with this. After the joint conference of the LSB NRW, the West German Football  and Athletics Association (WFLV) and the WGI in Mönchen­gladbach in May 2006, reports of developments in all-day schools’ offers of movement, games and sport (BeSS) inspired two new ideas: the evaluation of BeSS offers in primary schools and the development of polyvalent courses in the training of sports teachers, with the possibility of obtaining specific B profile coach licenses from their courses in order to be better prepared for the new challenges in sport and social education represented by the all-day schools. These two ideas directed the WGI’s activities regarding open all-day schools during the period of this report and also led to cooperative projects with LSB NRW.

The research project Evaluation of BeSS offers at open all-day primary schools, as regards its effects on the offers and structures of sports clubs, coordination offices and all-day support in LSB NRW was launched in the spring of 2007 with a pilot study in Essen. This was commissioned jointly by LSB NRW and Sport Youth North-Rhine Westphalia (SJ NRW), the Essen Sport Federation (ESPO) and Sport Youth Essen (SJE).

The WGI carried out the survey in cooperation with the Institute for Sport and Movement Sciences (ISBW) at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) during the second semester of the 2007/08 school year. The four groups of addressees in the study were: the head teachers and all-day coordinators at the all-day primary schools in Essen, sports associations in Essen that offer BeSS activities at those schools, those sports associations in Essen that do not yet offer any BeSS activities, people who function as coaches, trainers, teachers or other professionals who carry out BeSS activities at those schools.

Qualitative interviews were then carried out on the basis of an initial analysis of the results: with representatives of the coordination office (KST) sport in all-day schools at the SJE and ESPO, because in view of the KST’s master agreement with the educational authority for Essen  it is the central stakeholder in the procurement and implementation of BeSS offers at open all-day primary schools; with representatives of the school administration department as contract partner for KST and sponsor of category A and B open all-day schools, and representatives of Youth Welfare Services Essen gGmbH as sponsor of the town’s category C open all-day schools.

The pilot study was completed with the publication of a final report in December 2008 and a summary based on this that was published in January 2009.

One important observation from this pilot study is worth recording: those sports clubs in Essen that were involved with BeSS offers for the open all-day schools observed no drop in the membership of their children’s sections as a result of those offers. On the contrary, compared to those who made no BeSS offers their membership in the 7 to 14-year age group stabilised in spite of the fact that the number of children starting primary school in Essen was falling (demographic change); those who continued their BeSS offers for a number of years experienced a slight rise. Quality and continuity are the decisive factors that guarantee success for cooperations on open all-day schools.

The main study of the evaluation project was started at the beginning of 2009. This project was funded by LSB/ SJ NRW, the Ministry of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia (IM NRW) and its Sport department, the Ministry for Schools and Further Education in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (MSW NRW), its department responsible for Vocational Training, Value Education, Churches and Religious Communities and School Sport, and the Accident Fund for North Rhine-Westphalia (UK NRW).

Besides the WGI the following research institutes are involved: the ISBW at the UDE and the Work Group for Sport Didactics and Sport Psychology at the Institute for Sport Sciences at the Westphalian Wilhelms University (WWU) in Münster. The head of the consortium for the sponsors is the LSB NRW, and for the contractors the WGI.

The main study will be carried out in NRW in five independent cities – Düsseldorf, Essen, Münster, Oberhausen and Remscheid – and five administrative districts – Ennepe-Ruhr, Hochsauerland, Lippe, Steinfurt and Rhein-Erft.

The polls and investigations will be carried out in these ten areas by the WGI and the ISBW at the UDE in four A modules during the 2009/10 school year: online questioning of head teachers and all-day coordinators at open all-day primary schools (A 1), online questioning of clubs with and without BeSS offers (A 2), online questioning of individual BeSS providers (A 3), interviews with representatives of the KST and major sponsors of open all-day schools and telephone polling of other sponsors of open all-day schools (A 4).

Four additional B modules between the second semester 2009/10 until the second semester 2010/11 will be carried out at selected schools in four of the ten areas (Essen, Münster, Ennepe-Ruhr district and Steinfurt district). This will particularly address areas of pedagogical support and fields of activity present in all-day offers: the WGI and the ISBW at the UDE will carry out modules on the promotion of equal rights to participation (B 1) and movement training and health research (B 2), and the Work Group for Sport Didactics at WWU Münster will carry out modules on children’s participation (B 3) and the integration of children with a background of migration (B 4).

The evaluation phase for the project will begin in the summer of 2010 and is expected to be completed in the autumn of 2011. During the evaluation phase the Work Group for Sport Psychology at the WWU Münster will deal with dovetailing the data evaluation and documentation both between the individual B modules and between all the B modules and A modules using multivariate methods and appropriate statistical programs (module C 1).