Making sports accessible to children is the key driver for Cheshire’s NAR Sports
By Rich Wilcock
23rd Feb 2023 | SME's and Start-Ups
In the year that Adam Beasley has been running NAR Sports full-time, he has set up a charity associated with it, a new educational offering, and won a government contract to deliver sports coaching to the children of the local community.
He has also managed to provide free sports lessons to 6,000 children in Cheshire through partnerships with local businesses since the venture began.
It is a lot, by anyone's standards but the driving force behind why he does it is clear once you meet him. Adam wants to use sports as a way of nurturing important skills in children that they can use in later life.
"Teaching through sports coaching and providing access to sports is a huge part of what we do", Adam says.
Because we think that sport is undervalued when people talk about educating children, we feel it can help with the values, social aspects and the way it can build confidence in a child's development" Adam adds.
Adam was working full-time at Edenhurst School in Newcastle-Under-Lyme until last year alongside developing the sports coaching company NAR Sports.
The company is based in Wistaston and employs four full-time members of staff, however, he decided that he wanted to concentrate on NAR Sports full-time with a clear focus in mind.
"I could see that sport wasn't always accessible, and if it was, it wasn't great quality, so NAR really came from that idea, to give back, provide excellent coaching, and nurture potential.", Adam says.
Nurturing potential is a big part of what they do. Through their coaching sessions which include a multitude of different sports, NAR Sports will work with a child as they try different sports and help where needed to give them a springboard into an activity in which they've shown potential or interest.
Adam says: "Making it accessible is key, and if there is a love there, where can they go on and continue that journey?"
He continues "And that's really important and that's why we are working with local companies to help that. If we can help with discounted lessons or better access to sports clubs in the area. That's important. Giving a child a taste of a new sport is something that drives us and helps them."
With the partnerships in place and the multiple sports coaching sessions they have run, naturally, they have looked towards helping in school situations also and that is where NAR Education helps.
Set up this year, its aim is to provide better access to sports sessions in school and they currently work with four schools within Cheshire with plans to help at more locations in the future.
Adam says "the skills that we can offer and the coaches we have available to us can help schools access better skill sets and provide quality sports coaching and help where it is needed. It also heightens sports engagement, which we know is low."
Adam is right to think that sports engagement is low. The last report for the UK showed that a third of children in the UK did less than 30 minutes of activity each week with children doing less activity each year they spend at primary school.
That sort of statistic is key to why NAR do what they do with schools. If they can help schools utilise sport and PE as effectively as possible, through the PE premium and other funding, it helps both the schools and NAR show the benefits of sport to a child's development.
All the growth that NAR Sports has seen in the last year has been entirely organic, developing local connections and providing quality coaching has allowed the company to think a little bigger in terms of its next steps.
"We have 250 children currently in our football clubs and we'd be keen to branch out further into other sports, possibly set up our own leagues.", he says.
He adds: "Alongside that, our dream is to set up our own facility, a hub for us to offer more opportunity and increase accessibility and that's something we're currently working on, but as ever, with anything like that, it takes a little bit of time."
Lastly, he says "With that, we'd be able to do even more work with the community, which is key, because I don't think there are many others that do what we do, our ethos is slightly different so a facility would be fantastic to keep that going."
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