The annual Step into Sport Camp is organised by the Youth Sport Trust and supported by the Department for Culture Media and Sport and Sport England. The camp forms part of the Step into Sport pathway and each year attracts approximately 300 16 -19 year olds to Loughborough University for a four-day residential. Young people are selected by their School Sport Partnerships to attend the event, which supports them to learn more about themselves as people by understanding where their strengths and weaknesses lie.
The content of the four days will include access to National Governing Body and other awards, sessions on practical team building and Athlete delivered sessions. The latter focus on the responsibility of being a role model and structured content time with individual team leaders. These are made up of university students from six Higher Education Institutes nationally. There will, of course be social time built into the programme where the young people really do get the opportunity to mix with other people from different geographic areas, different backgrounds and different cultures. All of these are a key part of the learning process.
Following their SiS Camp experience, it is hoped that the young people involved go away with a real sense of confidence, self-esteem and enthusiasm and that they can use the skills that they have developed to pass this on to other young people. We want to use the opportunity to create young people as role models.