Over 600 children in Birmingham chose funetics for February half-term fun
funetics, working with its partners StreetGames, Premier Education and Aspire, hosted over 600 primary school-aged children across ten venues in Birmingham during the February half-term holidays.
These camps follow successful camps during Christmas, October half-term and Summer holidays in 2022 – the year of the highly successful Birmingham Commonwealth Games, and in part due to the funetics Commonwealth Games Legacy initiative, funded by Sport England. As a result, funetics is quickly becoming a popular choice for parents who want their children to access sports and enrichment activities during the school holidays.
StreetGames secured the Holiday, Activities & Food (HAF) programme funding to help its community partners to deliver free day-long holiday camps or family fun days which included fun athletics sessions, arts and crafts, food lessons and lunch. StreetGames normally only fund Winter, Easter and Summer holiday delivery but this additional funding allowed its partners to invite new families and children to come along and try new activities, get support on healthy eating, and additional advice and information.
The StreetGames sessions saw over 250 participate and express their enthusiasm for the activities and the opportunity to try new things. Streetgames are committed to helping young people in disadvantaged areas of the UK, providing positive and accessible opportunities, and their February half-term fun days were just one example of their impactful work in the community.
Premier Education saw 75 children across the week at two venues and Aspire welcomes over 200 children at six venues and Kingsbury saw around 125 children at three venues.
The next funetics holiday camps will take place during the Easter school Holidays. Those in Birmingham and surrounds will once again be part of the funetics Commonwealth Games initiative, funded by Sport England. Holiday Camps in other areas of England will be provided by England Athletics’ affiliated clubs, schools and providers, who are running the funetics programme as ‘always-on’ provision of athletics in curriculum time and in various breakfast and after-school sessions.
Comments from some of the children taking part in the funetics sessions:
"I loved the jumping session because it was something I had never done before and I like trying new things."
"I like doing the time trial because I like running fast."
"I like the throwing because I like trying to throw things far."
"I really enjoyed the throwing games because I got to try throwing lots of different things, my favourite was the howler because I got this one the furthest."
"I enjoyed the jumping activities because it was fun and I enjoyed working with my friends."