Call for Edinburgh council to allow after-school sports to restart after Christmas

The months-long pause on competitive games like hockey, football and rugby because of Covid was supposed to come to an end after the October mid-term break.

But only teacher-led sports were allowed to resume and now pressure is mounting for a fuller return to sports pitches.

Tory education spokesman Callum Laidlaw said: “Some schools have teachers that are very involved in extra-curricular sports, others are much more reliant on parents and the Active Schools programme, but there seems to be less teacher-delivered sport anyway just now because of the pressures on teachers.

"Particularly weekend and after-school sports clubs like hockey, rugby and football, typically run by parental coaches, have not been able to restart. It seems madness - for outdoor sport I can't see why parental-coached sport is any different to teacher-coached sport. Indeed you could argue teacher is more likely to be exposed to the virus than other professions.”

He said national sporting bodies had put in place safety measures to allow sports to resume safely and private schools and private clubs were back playing under these protocols.

He has tabled a motion for the council’s education committee next week, calling for the parent-led Active Schools infrastructure to be reinstated, approved parent volunteers and external coaches to be allowed to deliver all outdoor sports clubs and risk assessments to be put in place for indoor sports clubs to resume if Edinburgh moves to Level Two.

Peter Nienow, who has two daughters at Boroughmuir High School and acts as parent lead for hockey at the school, said Scottish Hockey had introduced strict rules, following Scottish Government guidelines, covering the number of people training and hand gel and other precautions. “Everyone is following the guidance but the council was simply not willing to let that happen.”

Normally there would be training for different year groups of Boroughmuir hockey players on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays through Active Schools at Meggetland, with the pitch provided free while the parents pay for the coaching. But now, to allow them to train, they have had to be attached to a hockey club and pay for hiring a pitch.

Mr Nienow said: “Boroughmuir has parents able to put in time and effort and afford to pay, but for a lot of schools there’s no way they can get round it.”

Education convener Ian Perry said: “We fully recognise the benefits that participating in sport brings to our young people and the really important role that parent volunteers and coaches provide for our schools.

"We hope Edinburgh will move to Level Two very soon and when this happens we will be looking at allowing parent volunteers and coaches to work once again with young people but our approach with the city in Level Three is doing all we can to keep people safe and limit the potential spread of Covid-19.

"This was agreed at education committee two months ago as part of our school recovery plan. Young people wanting to take part in sport outside of school hours are able to do so through most of our Edinburgh Leisure-managed buildings which have been up and running for the past couple of months.”

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.