BSB hosts the second transnational Erasmus + Sports project meeting

“Personality – Perseverance – Practice – Protection – Promotion”

The British School of Brussels (BSB) recently hosted the second transnational Erasmus+ Sports project meeting which looks at how to best support young high-level athletes to succeed in their dual careers.

Caron Davies (Leader in Physical Literacy at BSB) & Mariana De Carvalho (Head of Enrichment at BSB) explain in this article that this is a collaborative research project in which BSB is working alongside other schools, sports clubs and Government organisations from Denmark, Sweden and Cyprus.

The main aims of the project are to:

• explore the reasons why young high-level athletes, and particularly girls, stop participating early in their dual careers
• examine the importance of good governance in supporting dual careers
• develop support for parents of young high-level athletes
• explore how educational establishments/sports clubs can enhance, support and encourage greater participation in sport whilst balancing educational expectations and intensive training.

BSB’s objectives during this two-year project are to:

• enable young high-level athletes to succeed academically, socially and in their specialist sport
• develop structures that allow all stakeholders to successfully support these young people
• identify the key characteristics of individual and team sports and how to best develop these to aid success.

During a recent meeting at BSB we worked together to produce an online survey which will be used to gather data on key characteristics of high-level athletes. This data will then be analysed at our next meeting, where we will also invite a small number of selected female athlete students from each organisation to be interviewed about their own personal experiences. The feedback from the survey and interviews will then hopefully guide us towards ideas on how best to support our young high-level female athletes to succeed in their dual careers.

This is the first time BSB has been involved in an Erasmus+ Sports project, and it has been an interesting and valuable experience working with people from different countries and organisations. With the experience gained from this first project, we hope to be able to collaborate with other groups on similar research in the future.

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