Why Community Club Links Matter for Long-Term Pupil Participation

The Active Lives survey consistently shows the same pattern — children who join a community club before age 11 are 2–3× more likely to be active adults at 25 than children who do all their sport inside school. The reason is structural: school sport ends at 16 or 18; community sport doesn't.

For schools, this turns a finite resource (PE lessons across seven primary years) into something that compounds. For the partnership, it's the single most cost-effective lever we have for population-level activity change.

The Leeds North West Club Network — Who's Signed Up

The partnership maintains a register of community clubs across Leeds North West that have signed a Pupil Pathway Agreement. The agreement commits the club to a set of safeguarding, accessibility and pricing standards in exchange for access to school sessions and partnership events.

The current network covers (non-exhaustive):

The full register, including contact details and current pricing, is available to member schools through the partnership office.

How a "Pupil-to-Club" Pathway Actually Works

The pathway has three stages, and the speed bumps usually sit between them rather than within them.

Closing the stage-1-to-2 gap is the biggest opportunity. The partnership runs "buddy walks" for some sports — partnership staff or sports leaders physically walk a group of pupils from school to the club venue for the first session. Sounds basic, lands well.

For Schools — Setting Up a New Club Link in Three Steps

If your school doesn't yet have a link in a sport your pupils want, the process is short:

1. Pick the sport. Use the partnership's annual pupil survey or your own assessment to identify the demand — 25+ pupils wanting the same sport is the practical threshold.
2. Tell the partnership. We have club contacts across most sports and can identify which clubs have current capacity to host a school link.
3. Run the taster. The partnership co-ordinates the in-school taster, books the club coach, handles the safeguarding paperwork and shares the family-letter template.

From initial request to first taster session usually runs 4–8 weeks.

For Clubs — Becoming a Recognised Pathway Provider

Clubs that want to join the network apply through the partnership office. The agreement covers:

• Safeguarding — Charter Standard / NGB equivalent active, lead Welfare Officer named, all coaches DBS-cleared, junior session ratios within NGB guidelines.
• Accessibility — published pricing, bursary mechanism for low-income families, physical accessibility audit of the venue completed within last 24 months.
• Coaching — minimum NGB Level 1 qualification for session lead, Level 2 or above for any session with 12+ participants.
• Reporting — termly headcount return to the partnership so we can track outcomes.

Funding and Bursaries to Lower the Family-Cost Barrier

Cost is the single most-cited reason pupils don't progress from in-school taster to club membership — by a margin. The partnership and its club partners have three pots that schools can flag to families:

• Pupil Premium-backed bursaries — eligible pupils receive subsidised first-term membership. Funded by school PE & Sport Premium where appropriate.
• Club-led bursaries — most network clubs hold their own hardship pot. Application is usually a short form via the welfare officer.
• Equipment exchange — partnership-run kit-share for parents who can't immediately fund equipment (cricket pads, hockey sticks, football boots). Runs each September.

Tracking Outcomes — Did Pupils Actually Carry On?

Headcount returns from clubs are matched against the in-school taster lists. Each spring the partnership publishes a Pathway Conversion Rate per sport — the percentage of pupils who participated in an in-school taster who are still attending a club six months later.

The headline numbers for 2024/25 (the most recent published):

The cross-sport average sits around 44%, which is meaningfully above the national benchmark for taster-to-club conversion. Tennis lags because of court-time bottlenecks; rugby lags because contact-to-non-contact transitions cause attrition. Both have action plans for 2025/26.

FAQs from Parents, Schools and Club Coordinators