Buntús

County Cork Local Sports Partnership is proud to announce that we have delivered the Buntús Programme (link to detailed info) below to all 301 primary schools in County Cork. In total 1,934 teachers and 36,815 pupils have benefited from the programme.

The next phase of the programme is to begin revisiting the schools to assist in the continued development of the programme. To this extent the partnership has recently received €10,000 from the Irish Sports Council to begin this process.

In addition the Sports Partnership has successfully piloted the Buntús Start programme for pre-schools. The partnership will now continue to roll out the programme and it is envisaged that at least another 40 pre-schools will receive training in 2007.

The Buntús Soccer programme supported by the Sports Partnership has also been rolled out to almost all primary schools in the county as a follow on to the generic programme. The programme focused on learning the skills of soccer in a fun way and has been extremely successful to date.

The Irish Rugby Federation, Badminton Ireland, Basketball Ireland and Golf Ireland all have developed Buntús programmes for their sports and will roll them out in various parts of the county during 2007.

The Buntús programme was developed and implemented by the Participation Unit of the Irish Sports Council (ISC). The LSPs deliver the Buntús Play and Buntús Multi Sport programmes to support teachers and other adults in introducing young people to sport, and in helping them to develop their interests. The Buntús programme is delivered in support of the physical education programme. County Cork Local Sports Partnership is delighted to announce that the Buntús Programme has been delivered to all primary school in County Cork. We would like to all the teachers, principals and tutors who made this possible.

Buntús is designed to give children a fun but high quality introduction to the fundamental skills of sport. They are given access to a wide variety of sports

Most children are introduced to sport in their homes or their surrounding community. It is important therefore that an enjoyable multi sport and non-competitive model is used to introduce our children to sport that will complement and enhance both our school and community sport programmes.

The three key components of the programme - training, resource cards and equipment - are designed to provide easy to understand, and accessible support to give children a fun, but high quality introduction to sport.

• Raise the profile of physical education and sport
• Improve in-service training opportunities for teachers
• Assist governing bodies of sport to develop and deliver appropriate support for teachers
• Provide enjoyable and meaningful activity for children
• Support delivery of the National Curriculum.
  
  

The Buntús Start programme is a comprehensive physical activity programme for children aged three to five years. The aim of the programme is to extend the physical, creative, personal, social and emotional capabilities of preschool children through enjoyable activities in the areas of spatial awareness, basic motor skills, coordination and control skills and aiming, predicting and estimating skills.

Buntús Play is designed to support 4 to 9 year olds introducing core skills and fun sport while Buntús Sport builds on Buntús Play introducing specific modified sports to 7 to 11 year olds and offers the first step for children to lead, officiate and organise in sport.