The Oxford University Sport and Community Partnership

Background

Sport offers a powerful way to build bridges, create connections and inspire young people.

The University of Oxford and local business leaders are working together to create a new partnership that can deliver opportunities to young people across the County.

The University has a globally recognised reputation for sport, including the Bannister sub-4 minute mile, winning the FA Cup 150 years ago and educating over 50 Olympic gold medallists. We have a range of talented student athletes, keen to use sport as a means to have positive social impact.

Through a new partnership, the University aims will make its sports facilities more widely available for local community activities and deliver inspiring sports programmes to state schools across the County. We aim to create opportunities that focus on children with limited access to sports facilities or who might not otherwise have the opportunity to interact with the University.

We see sport as one way in which we can create a more integrated County, build bridges between the University and the wider community and inspire young people to be interested in higher education.

Current activities

Schools programme

In autumn 2023 the University piloted the Oxford Sport Leaders Programme for 30 Year 8 students (aged 12–13) from Greyfriars Secondary School, located in one of the most disadvantaged parts of Oxford, to come and spend one day each week at the University. In the mornings, they received elite sports coaching from Blues athletes in areas such as basketball, football, athletics and rowing. They had lunch in a college, then spent afternoons hearing from inspiring academics about research linked to sport, such as mathematical modelling for football, law and rules in sport, the anthropology of crowd behaviour, neuroscience and brain injury.

The impact evaluation shows extremely positive outcomes, and the programme is being expanded to reach children from three secondary schools in East Oxford (Oxford Spires, the Oxford Academy and Greyfriars) in May and June 2024.

Opening and sharing facilities

We are working to more systematically open up University and college sports facilities to schools and community organisations, in collaboration with colleges and Active Oxfordshire. Together they will run an organised matching scheme that will link up enthusiastic children with suitable sports clubs in the area. Participating colleges will also open up their sports facilities and have undergraduate students mentor children in various sports.

Community events

The University has already hosted a series of community football tournaments this year with the Oxford Community Association, and in April 2024 Oxford also hosted its inaugural Powerhouse Games, bringing together children from local secondary schools, including special needs schools, to compete in teams in a range of inclusive sports.

On 6 May 2024 the University hosted the Bannister Miles event to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Sir Roger Bannister’s sub-four-minute-mile world record, which was famously set at the University’s Iffley Road Sports Centre running track in 1954. The Bannister Miles event included a mass participation mile run with over a thousand runners, starting from the High Street and finishing at the Iffley Road track, where individual miles were run by participants ranging from schoolchildren right up to elite level. Bannister Miles will now become an annual community event, celebrating athletics, encouraging participation in physical activity among young people, and signposting ongoing sporting opportunities for them.

The inaugural Powerhouse Games at the Iffley Road Sports Centre.

Objectives

We believe sport can play a transformative role within the community, and we have a number of objectives:

Partnership – convening the University, businesses, schools and local organisations to work together for a more inclusive and physically active Oxfordshire.

Continuity – delivering a sport-based community engagement programme that will endure and grow.

Social change – supporting social mobility, personal resilience and young people’s educational and professional aspirations.

Connection – building bridges across people from different age groups and backgrounds.

Opportunities for schools – including the most disadvantaged schools in Oxford, making it easier for schools to create more opportunities for community-building physical activities.

Fundraising

The chief aim of the Oxford University Sport and Community Partnership is to empower and unlock opportunities for young people through sport and physical activity. In order to build and deliver this programme, we are seeking philanthropic support from enthusiastic individuals, businesses, and local organisations who want to make a difference in our community.

Under the administration of a dedicated project manager, the OU Sport and Community Partnership will work collaboratively with the collegiate university, local organisations, businesses, sports clubs, and schools to design and deliver sports and physical activity programmes that will benefit local communities, inspire young people, and contribute to a more inclusive and integrated Oxfordshire, with a focus on delivering outcomes in six key areas:

• management and delivery of a Sport Leadership Programme for secondary schools across Oxford
• delivery of sport engagement programmes across the county with schools and local sport clubs
• creation of greater access to University and college sport facilities through matching demand and supply
• piloting small-scale children’s sport clubs at the University’s Iffley Road Sports Centre (such as for athletics and cricket)
• enabling enhanced liaison and coordination between schools, clubs, business leaders and different parts of the University
• working with Active Oxfordshire to introduce enthusiastic young sportspeople to local sports clubs.

What we hope to achieve

By harnessing the facilities and resources of the Collegiate University and working collaboratively with local businesses, schools, and sports clubs through the OU Sport and Community Partnership, we aim to grow and scale our sport and community activities for even greater impact.

To demonstrate this impact, the programme will work to several key performance indicators:

• delivering schools programmes at the University open to 100+ secondary school children per year, enabling children to spend one day per week at the University over a four-week period
• offering sports-related after-school clubs in the community over eight-week periods to at least 1,000 primary and secondary school children per year and across at least 12 difference schools
• making University and college sports facilities available for use by local community sports clubs and schools for a minimum 200 hours per year
• undertaking an impact evaluation of the programme as part of a longitudinal study which can link outcomes to positive social impact and inform public policy.

The long-term ambition of the Oxford University Sport and Community Partnership is to build a strong network of dedicated partners with whom we can work in synergy to make these outreach and engagement activities sustainable and enduring, to the benefit of our city and the entire county.

Thank you for considering becoming our partner in support of this exciting and meaningful initiative.