Oaklands Colleges’ campaign for active students backed by National Lottery funding

Oaklands College has recently been announced as one of just 49 colleges in the UK to have secured funding from Sport England, targeted to reduce the number of students who are completing less than thirty minutes of activity each week.

Sport England’s new Strategy ‘Towards an Active Nation’ puts tackling inactivity at the heart of what they do.  As part of this initiative, Sport England is investing £5 million into projects in colleges via National Lottery funding that will support their inactive students into regular activity.

Oaklands College has created a ’Active8’ personalised enrichment programme based on mental health and personal development, mixing theoretical learning about fitness, nutrition with physical activities to suit the needs of each individual.

Each student on the Active8 scheme will set personal goals – this could be anything from life habits like walking to college to wider goals such as improving confidence and self-esteem. After an initial assessment from a qualified professional, students will log current activity levels and create a plan via eight pathways with the end goal of becoming more active in their day-to-day life.

This week, students at St Albans Campus kick-started the scheme with a session on nutrition – more specially guessing sugar values by gram on everyday snacks, sweets and drinks. By physically weighing out their guess weights in sugar, students were able to visualise clearly the amount of sugar in each portion and how this fits within our daily-recommended intake.

Mike Diaper, Executive Director of Community Sport said: “We are delighted to offer Oaklands College National Lottery funding to help get students active. College is a crucial time in a young person’s development. It is often the first time that activity is not a compulsory part of their study programme and therefore all too many young people become inactive. 

“This funding will allow colleges to be innovative in addressing the needs and desires of their students to help embed activity in their lifestyle in college and for years to come.”

Oaklands College Principal Zoe Hancock said: “We are really pleased to have secured this funding which will have a real positive impact for so many of our students and staff.  The aim of our Active8 programme is to tackle inactivity and support students and staff to make sustainable life changes around activity, nutrition and wellbeing.”