Mr. Kevin Creery:

I thank the committee for feedback. It sounds like the problems we are facing are exactly the same.

There were several allusions to inclusivity and how we deal with kids who would not ordinarily take part. As a physical education co-ordinator, I was bringing rugby, soccer and Gaelic football programmes into my school which has 641 kids. As soon as the ball came out, half the children were disinterested. I could see the girls and boys who did not want to play rugby and soccer and did not want to be there. We decided to write an all-inclusive programme in which every single child felt important and took part. We now have data on 6,000 children. Every child is tested on week one and then given their scores. If Claire Heneghan and I were in a 30 m sprint, it does not matter what time either of us achieves. Instead, I am competing with myself the next time and the coach encourages me to do that. These are station-based programmes like circuit classes in which all the children take part. No child sits out. We have parents, principals and teachers involved.

The greatest testament we can give to this is the fact that Stormont gave us £40,000 and Sport Northern Ireland gave us £20,000 to keep the programme going in three schools. After Stormont collapsed, every school in the programme paid for it out of their own money. We now have 64 schools willing to pay for it.