SEELB NOF for PE and Sport

NEW OPPORTUNITY FUND PE & SPORT PROGRAMME

What is the New Opportunities Fund?

The New Opportunities Fund provides lottery funding for education, health and environment projects which will help create lasting improvements to the quality of life, particularly in disadvantaged communities.

What is the new opportunities for PE and sport programme?

The New Opportunities Fund will commit a gross total of £33.75 million to the new opportunities for PE and sport programme in Northern Ireland. This funding will be used to support projects designed to bring about a step-change in the provision of sporting facilities for young people and for the community generally by:

Modernising existing, and building new, indoor and outdoor sports facilities for school and community use.

Providing initial revenue funding to support the development and promotion of these sporting facilities for wider community use (up to 20% of the funding available).

Building or refurbishing outdoor adventure facilities. This should benefit young people who do not currently have ready access to these facilities (up to £2.25 million of the funding available).

This step-change in provision is intended not just to offer sporting opportunities, but to have a long term impact on key issues facing local communities such as education, health, crime and drugs misuse.

We will ensure that new and modernised facilities funded through the programme:

Integrate and support wider local strategies to improve PE and school sport

Integrate sport, education and health outcomes.

Encourage innovative approaches that make use of best practice in the design and management of facilities.

The programme will play a key part in helping to increase the levels of physical activity among young people and local communities.

The programme will play a vital role in developing the relationship between families of schools and between schools and their communities in supporting the development of citizenship and lifelong learning.

Who will benefit from the programme?

The primary beneficiaries of the programme will be children and young people. All projects must demonstrate that the facilities developed will be used by children aged 4 to 16, both within and beyond the curriculum.

Wider community use (in other words, use by the non-school population) will also be essential for all but the smallest projects.

What is the application process for the programme?

Education and Library Boards (ELBs) will act as the Lead Organisations for the grant programme. They will work with other school authorities and a range of organisations, as an ELB Area Partnership, to identify priorities for funding. There is an indicative funding allocation for each ELB Area Partnership; these allocations are based on the size of the school population and the levels of deprivation within ELB areas.

The SEELB Area Partnership have agreed on a set of criteria and weighting system on which to score all applications.

Much of the criteria is related to NOF priorities.

All schools are invited to submit an ‘expression of interest’ to the SEELB Area Partnership for any proposed projects.

The ‘expression of interest’ application form can be requested from SEELB Headquarters by contacting Tom Walsh, Neil McGivern or Alison Vance.