MCA COMMUNITY LETTINGS PROGRAMME Sep 2013-June 2014 Sports Development
Manchester Communication Academy (MCA) is situated in Harpurhey, North Manchester which is one of the top 1% most deprived wards in England and Wales. The area suffers from the 2nd highest level of unemployment in England. The MCA Community team was established to work effectively, in partnership, to provide opportunities for education and enrichment to adults residing in the communities within postcode areas M8, M9, and M40.
Over the past 12 months we have written two successful funding bids for Collyhurst and Moston Boxing Club who have received £2025 from Northwards Housing and Sportivate.
The Challenge Our locality has significant levels of deprivation. We see our community programme as a way of combatting poor health, combined with reducing the high rates of crime and anti social behaviour in order to improve the wellbeing of residents. Our pricing policy for lettings therefore had to be flexible and supportive of new and small scale ventures. Our approach has enabled us to make significant progress in widening community participation in health related activities.
The funding has allowed the club to purchase new equipment, develop a new session for young people aged 16-25 and training and development for volunteers. The new session has allowed the club to have 32 new participants access the fun and challenging ‘Box Yourself To Fitness’ sessions at the boxing club, 28 of the participants have now been retained within the club as volunteers or as participants for the social, health and fitness aspects. In addition to this, the team produced two bids for another club who also use the facility at MCA. During last 12 months we have also been able to support 3 other sports clubs/groups with funding and training opportunities. While working with these clubs we have been able to help with the constitution of new clubs, this has allowed one club to become more transparent by offering roles and opportunities out to its members. We have also been able to successfully help two sports/health & fitness clubs constitute as a group. MCA assisted in the development of Manchester Visually Impaired Football Club develop by allowing a junior session to be added to their current booking and now have 12 participants attending weekly.
During the past 12 months we have developed our community programme by adding new sessions/activities such as Gymnastics, Trampolining, Open gym, Family cookery, Community football league Zumba and Insanity. We have also taken two new clubs into our programme. The first being a very popular fitness group called “Us Divas & Us Lads” who offer fitness sessions to its members. The second are “FairStage Academy” who offer ballet, Jazz, Tap Freestyle and modern dancing. They have been growing rapidly in a short amount of time and now have over 35 members attending their weekly sessions. This was added to our regular successful community programme, which allowed the community offer to stay sustainable all year round compared to the previous years where the numbers dropped as we approached the summer. The graph shows 2013/14 years figures compaired to 2012/13.
2012/13 data compared to 2013/14 data
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Background
2012/13 2013/14
Silchester Drive | Harpurhey | Manchester | M40 8NT manchestercommunicationacademy.com admin@mca.manchester.sch.uk | 0161 202 0161
Youth Crime ASB statistics for the local area are down from last year. The team are looking to restart a weekly Saturday night football league project in partnership with GMP, Fire Service and Street League. The project is scheduled to be started in February and it will be running between 5pm-7pm following a recommendation from the police. The aim is to attract 36 young people to participate at one time by splitting the 3g pitch into three 6-aside pitches. On 15th of February we trialled a community football competition for young people aged between 13-16 years old. We had 32 young people attend on the night and following the success of the competition we now run a community football league which funded by The Big Local Collyhurst. The league has had 115 different individuals who have attended the weekly competition which will run until September.
Health & Well-Being MCA played a significant role in the the forming of the Harpurhey Health Village (www.harpurheyhealthvillage.co.uk). The initiative was formed in partnership with many local organisations such as Zest, Manchester City Council, Manchester College, valuing older people, voluntary sector and Factory Youth Zone.
Over the last year the community team have also helped in the development of ‘Recovery Castle’. This was originally a social media group called MMHP – Making Mental Health Positive and now the group have developed into a Community Interest Company (CiC). The group now holds monthly get-togethers at MCA where members of the local community and members of their social network are invited to come along. These meetings are based around arts and crafts.
They have on average eighteen students attending their specific gym class with sessions adapted to the needs of the participants to allow them to gain maximum benefit from the sessions. The community team have also started offering ‘Open Gym’ where members of the local community, including parents of school children, can attend the gym at an affordable rate of £1. The open gym has received a good respoonse from users with up to 15 participants accessing the provision on a daily basis. There is also a fantastic opportunity for people who access the session to have our fitness instructor develop them a workout programme to meet and achieve their goals. As part of our health offer we have also continued supporting the selfhelp service who have been using the facilities here on a Friday for their clients. The clients attend a 6 week programme where they work through a programme of online cognitive behavioural therapy. Coach Education
Part of the support provided to Recovery Castle has been help with their branding – MCA GCSE graphics students have been designing the new logo for the company. The team also worked closely with The Grange Autistic school that use MCA’s gym facility on a Friday afternoon.
MCA hosts sports specific courses which are delivered by Sport Structures and Manchester County Football Association. first aid. The courses that are delivered at MCA have been to the needs of the community such as FA Level 1 or 2 football, Basketball Level 1 or 2 and minimum operating courses such as safeguarding and protecting children.
Over the past 12 months we have hosted 35 coach education courses/workshops with a total of 720 places taken. Over 50% of the people who attended the courses have a links to Manchester or Manchester based clubs. Other Community Learning Sacred Knowledge (Al Huda) This academic year, two Al Huda courses were delivered at MCA: Foundational Islamic Sciences Level 1 from September 2013 to June 2014 and Science of Quran Recitation from January 2014 to June 2014 Foundational Islamic Sciences Level 1 included topics such as the basics of purification, prayer, fasting, alms giving and pilgrimage in Islam, the life of Prophet Muhammad, the basic belief system of Muslims, and purification of the heart and good character. Science of Quran Recitation included topics such as rules of recitation of the Quran, attributes of letters and points of articulation, and recitation. During 2013/14 more than 100 students attended the courses, 62 men and 61 women. The youngest students were two 12 year old girls and the eldest, a 60 year old gentleman.
Completion of Foundational Islamic Sciences level 1 leads onto the Level 2 course which includes topics such as: laws of marriage &family life, the character and daily practices of Prophet Muhammad, commentary of the Noble Quran, and spirituality.
facility have soared to an average of 164 per week.
Active Families The current provision includes Mothers and Daughters (ladies only) gym session, three open gym sessions, family cookery and Dads’ football. The average total weekly attendees for the year commencing September – June 2014 is 39. The average for each session is below:
Mothers and daughters average class size of 5.9 Open gym sessions 15 visits per week Family cookery 5.4 visits per week for children aged 10 and above and their families Dads Football 12.8 males per week
The family cookery class has developed into a session where families are referred by the pastoral team. We have seen three families attend the session with great success. The Dads Football session has been well received and they are looking to become a competing team and are likely to enter into a league in the 2015/16 season. Our active families brochure advertises urban gym, which was not available until April, however with the addition of a basketball post the number of users for this part of the
Monitoring and Evaluation The community team keep a daily record of users who access the facility. Our target is to have on average 1300 visits per week from our users. The graph below shows that currently the average number of users is 1375 a week.
This year we also piloted a community survey to see what our users thought of the community programme and if it met their needs.
The survey showed that 47% of our users used the facilities once a week and 51% of the users used it two or more times a week. 98% of users believe the facilities at MCA meet the needs of the community which includes the knowledge by staff, the pricing policy and the variety of activites the programme offers.