Playground to Podium (P2P) is a series of targeted interventions aimed at helping all young disabled people progress from PE and community sport to high-level performance and competition.
The aim of Playground to Podium is to produce our next Paralympians and elite disabled athletes, by focusing on the identification, development and support of young disabled people. However, it’s essential that all young disabled people get the chance to take part in high-quality sports provision.
Who is Playground to Podium aimed at?
Young disabled people from mainstream and special schools (KS 2&3 Aquatics / KS 3&4 Dry-side).
There are four groups of athletes:
• Physically impaired athletes
• Blind or visually impaired athletes
• Deaf or hearing impaired athletes
• Athletes with an intellectual/learning disability
How is Playground to Podium delivered?
School Sport Partnerships are encouraged to adopt the model below in a flexible manner and in way that compliments their current delivery, to achieve the outcome of more young disabled people participating and achieving in PE and sport. This might mean that one off Identifying Ability days are not the best approach for your SSP and in fact utilising existing competition/ clubs will provide more meaningful identification opportunities and experiences for the young people themselves.
Out of school hours opportunities:
Multi skills / multi sport / school and satellite clubs
Regular intra and inter school competition
County Athlete Assessment Days (CAAD):
Dry-side & Wet-side*
15 young disabled people per SSP (70% with physical & sensory impairments & 30% with learning disabilities) identified as having higher ability in PE and sport (10 dryside, 5 aquatics)
Fastrack – NGB
Talent pathways
Participation/community clubs and opportunities
What are the performance pathways for young people with a disability?
County Athlete Assessment Day provide an opportunity for participating NGBs to assess whether young people demonstrating higher ability in PE and sport have the potential to further progress within that sport and along its Paralympic or impairment appropriate pathway. Each county will host a County Athlete Assessment day and this will be led by the CSP.
At present, six National Governing Bodies are involved in the programme: Athletics, Boccia, Football, Swimming, Table Tennis and Wheelchair Basketball. Although, the SSPs elements of Playground to Podium focus on multiskill/multi-sport experiences it may beneficial to understand the performance pathways present for each Sport to support the alignment of your work.
The focus impairment groups (due to performance/ Paralympic pathways being in place) for the sports at a County Athlete Assessment day are as follows; (As a guide around learning disability, this will include athletes with an IQ of 75 or less, evident before reaching 18 and with limited day to day social abilities. In practice this means that it is likely that young people from a MLD special school setting, or those within a MLD unit of a mainstream school, or those with downs syndrome may be eligible. Young people may have other conditions, such as ADHD; autism; dyslexia; behavioural problems or Asperger’s for example. This does not automatically exclude them, however, if these are the only or primary conditions they are unlikely to fulfill the learning disability eligibility requirements.)