Witney News - Getting fit after school

Getting fit after school

A new project has been launched to take exercise and dance classes to sixth form students at West Oxfordshire schools to give them a chance to get more active.

Free sessions are running after school at the District’s secondary schools for 16 to 19-year-olds as part of the Fitness for Free project. Sessions are also being held at the Windrush Leisure Centre, Witney, for students from Abingdon and Witney College.

Students will have the opportunity to try activities such as street dance and salsa mix, as well as boxercise and abdominal exercise sessions.

The classes are running every Wednesday at all of the schools except Bartholomew School, Eynsham, where sessions are being held every Tuesday.

Fitness for Fun has been organised by West Oxfordshire’s GO Active team, which includes a co-ordinator based at the District Council and ‘activators’ employed by the Council’s leisure contractor Nexus Community, in conjunction with West Oxfordshire School Sport Partnership (SSP).

Go Active is a countywide project which aims to encourage over 16s in Oxfordshire to get more active and lead healthier lifestyles. Fitness for Free is being piloted in West Oxfordshire and, if successful, could be rolled out to secondary schools and colleges across the county.

Cllr Barry Norton, Leader of West Oxfordshire District Council, which supports GO Active, said: “By taking these sessions into schools, this new project provides an easy, convenient way for young people to take part in exercise. We would like to encourage sixth formers to make the most of this opportunity to benefit from these free classes, which we hope will be fun as well as helping to support them to be active and healthy.”

Claire Wallace, Partnership Development Manager for West Oxfordshire SSP, said: “This project is a fantastic opportunity for us to extend the work we are doing with schools beyond the age of 16. In most sixth forms physical education is not on the curriculum and this project is helping us create new opportunities to keep young people active and promote life-long participation.”

The sessions are free for all students who wish to take part and have been funded through Sport England’s Sports Unlimited fund.

Fitness for Free is just one of the projects running in West Oxfordshire as part of GO Active. For more information about other activities, contact GO Active co-ordinator Sarah Sandford on 01993 861564 or visit www.getoxfordshireactive.org.