Monthly news - Olympic hope

At the School Sport Partnerships Conference this month, over 1,000 delegates from the world of school and community sport will put their heads together towards a single goal: how they can most effectively develop sporting opportunities for children and young people as we move towards 2012.

Steve Grainger, Chief Executive of the Youth Sport Trust, the national charity that organises the event, says; "It takes incredible teamwork between a number of organisations to provide these sorts of opportunities and this year's two day event will focus on how each can most effectively perform their role as part of this team."

School sport partnerships are groups of schools working together to develop PE and sport opportunities for all young people. Typically, a secondary PE teacher works as a school sport coordinator (SSCO) with their network of primaries alongside other SSCOs under the overall guidance of a partnership development manager (PDM). All maintained schools in England are now involved as they work towards the new government target of five hours of weekly physical activity per child by 2012.

This month's seminar, a series of keynote speeches, workshops and demonstrations, will keep everyone up to date about the key issues such as curriculum, volunteering and coaching, school to community and competition. Susan Kent, PDM at South Down School sport partnership in Sussex, believes the conference allows people to take a step back from day to day issues and look more broadly at what they want to achieve and how best to achieve it.

One new idea set for launch at the conference is 'crazy ball' – an invasion game where players score points by taking catches off springy rebound nets called 'crazy catches'. "The conference gives you a chance to get new ideas across to very busy people," says teacher Richard Beghin, who will be demonstrating the new sport at the conference this year.

For more information, visit the Youth Sport Trust website and the Crazy Catch website.