A key role identified when the club created the Director of Hockey role was to develop a School Outreach Programme. The aim was to make an impact in our local community, particularly in the state sector and to attract young people to hockey. Further, increasing exposure to the sport of hockey in the local area may encourage more young people to take up the sport and possibly attend our holiday camps and even help to grow our junior membership moving forward.
Neil Murphy and the DOH worked together to secure funding from the London Hockey Futures Programme which, aligned with support from the SSLT (Southgate Sports and Leisure Trust) ensured we would be able to maximise our offer to schools. If schools were unable to finance our visits they were not precluded from involvement as we would be able to offer coaching free of charge.
Developing this strategy from a standing start, we made significant progress in year one. The DOH role covered the vast majority of the coaching requirements with support from a few of our junior coaches. Akshay Palaniappan, Lucy Cope, Harry Haynes, Sofia Martin, Olivia Richardson and Georgie Castle all coached in schools at various points during 2023 and the first half of 2024. We worked with 12 state schools and 3 independent schools during the academic year, working in schools in the Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Boroughs as well as schools in Hertfordshire. We coached in various environments, providing breakfast & after school clubs, lessons, Sports Week visits, festivals, masterclasses and hosting primary schools in an event on the water pitch at Southgate.
The knock on effect over the course of the year was to see a number of children attending our holiday camps and joining the club, with some bringing siblings to the club too.
We are now into year two of the programme with new club member and coach Finn Dalton joining the coaching team. I am pleased to announce that we have secured a second year of funding from the London Hockey Futures programme and the new programme is already up and running.
The Danegrove Breakfast Club, Rhodes Avenue After School Club and Kingsmead Hockey Club have all grown since last year and we have already run masterclass sessions at York House and Vita et Pax. We are hosting a Festival at the club in November for primary schools in the Enfield and Barnet boroughs too.
There is much more to come from the Southgate School Outreach Programme and we look forward to extending our reach into our local community during the academic year.