French federation releases new guide to teaching archery in schools
Images courtesy of FFTA (rights reserved).
The French Archery Federation (FFTA) has launched a new educational guide to teaching archery in schools, which is aimed at making the sport easier to access for children.
It’s part of a project named ‘Let’s build tomorrow’s federation together’, a multi-faceted programme to engage young people. The overall goal is to increase each child’s chance of discovering archery.
In 2017, the 1628 clubs affiliated to the federation had just over 75,000 members. Young people represented 42% of the total membership, with only six percent under the age of 10.
“We had difficulties because the approach in our clubs was not appropriate at the school level, and the approach sport teachers had did not correspond to us,” explained FFTA president Jean-Michel Cleroy.
The federation’s commission for archery in schools produced the new educational guide and its 28 accompanying cards as a solution. The material provides a framework for teachers to offer, in complete safety, archery as an educational sports activity.
Parallels were found between the national curriculum and the club approach to archery coaching, and the guide outlines lesson plans.
As well as meeting academic objectives in school, it critically opens a pathway between archery in school and archery at clubs. That continuity allows for use in both environments and a consistent experience for young people wherever they discover the sport.
Following an agreement with the National Union of School Sport to offer training for teachers, the first national course based on the new resources will take place in early April 2019.
“We already have 40 preliminary registrations [for the training], which shows there is demand,” said Cleroy.
Further work with primary school children aged under 10 is ongoing. There’s an idea to develop an arrow without a point and a tent-like target that’s thrown down.
“It would be easy to implement with a budget not too high for schools,” added Cleroy.
Clubs can order the new guide for teaching archery in schools through the French federation’s online shop, while the public can buy it directly on the publisher’s website.
France is not the only national federation focused on activating archery in schools.
USA Archery announced a renewed partnership with Olympic Archery in Schools, an Easton Sports Development Foundation project, to increase awareness of state championship events, membership, programming and other opportunities across the two organisations.
Olympic Archery in Schools is a recurve archery league for middle and high schools across the USA.
