Youth – Under 15s

Youth Projects Working group is led by Ilkely Harriers and chaired by Shirley Wood. Its current activities are as follows:



School-based athletics (Level 1 participation)

  1. Developing 3-5 primary-school cross-country leagues in each locality – Ilkley and Wharfedale, Keighley and Craven district, North Bradford and East & South Bradford. At present the first three of these leagues are running, each with four or five events and each with about a dozen primary schools participating. They feed into the secondary schools leagues organised by Bradford Schools AA. The medium-term aim is to expand the existing three leagues, and start a fourth; increase participation beyond 900 school-children; and increase the number of events towards 5-6 per league.
  2. Organising SportsHall gala events at the Richard Dunn Centre, Odsal. These comprise four accessible club/school competitions during the year.
  3. Providing Saturday morning clubs and ‘community’ track-and-field sessions. In particular, these include Bingley Saturday Kids’ Club; Ilkley primary schools T&F; and the Open Kross challenges at Cliffe Castle park over the winter, with the short and medium courses tailored for school-children.
  4. Initiating lunchtime and after-school clubs in East and South Bradford (Bradford Airedale AC). Currently three such clubs exist in the Eccleshill district.

Junior club-based athletics (Level 2 participation)

  1. Organising accessible club-based cross-country races for under-11s and under-17s within the Peco League (five races over the winter for clubs across West Yorkshire). The current aim is to increase the numbers of clubs participating and increase the numbers of participants.
  2. Establish a fell-terrain league of a dozen events for juniors. The short-term aim is to raise the profile of this series, started in 2010, and increase participation.
  3. Provide four taster sessions in the year for track-and-field at the tracks at Horsfall (near Odsal) and University Academy, Keighley.
  4. Develop clear competition pathways, from entry-level to district-level (i.e. the three levels described in the headings here).

Junior clinics and representative teams (Level 3 participation)

  1. Deliver event-specific coaching and coach development sessions aimed at youth groups. In particular, jumping clinics at Ghyll Royd (Ilkley); track-work clinics at Horsfall stadium; indoors at Leeds.
  2. Support and organise an Inter-district SportsHall competition for West Yorkshire – U11, U13 & U15 trials (2 events) at the Richard Dunn Centre, Odsal.
  3. Support and help develop the Bradford Schools AA events, aiming to increase participation across all the secondary-school age-groups.
  4. Work with Calderdale Network (and, where appropriate, the Leeds Network) in providing and promoting the maximum take-up of regional coach development sessions.

The expected numbers of beneficiaries during the current year are: 1400 individuals, the majority primary school-children, but also 400 young athletes in clubs, and with the support of 5 coaches.

The England Athletics subsidy this year for these activities is £7850. The group’s activities are beginning to become self-sustaining through the levy of participation fees. The group expects to commit over 400 hours of volunteer time on these projects.

Comments are closed.