The German Football Association (DFB) and its regional associations are proclaiming the "Year of the School". The aim of the nationwide initiative is to bring more exercise and sport into everyday school life. The "Year of School" aims to provide new impetus to get children and young people interested in physical activity in the long term and to strengthen schools as central places for education and participation. This is about more than just soccer.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), children should get at least one hour of physical activity a day. The reality is different. According to the German Sports Teachers' Association, 75 percent of primary school children fail to meet the WHO target. The consequence: according to a health insurance study, 300,000 schoolchildren aged between six and 18 in Germany currently suffer from motor development disorders. That is 64 percent more than in 2008 - a worrying development.
But sport is about more than just physical fitness. It also promotes mental health, is a social learning environment and contributes to personality development. In team sports, children learn how to treat each other fairly, take responsibility and resolve conflicts. Nevertheless, sport is often treated as a minor matter in educational discourse. It's a leisure activity that you can afford if you have time to spare. For the DFB and its member associations, this is a fatal fallacy. They now want to do more to counteract this and initiate an offensive for school sports.
DFB President Bernd Neuendorf says: "The entire approach to sport in schools needs to be reconsidered. The current situation does not even come close to doing justice to the development of children and young people. As organized soccer, we don't just want to make demands, we primarily want to support and help. As an association, it is our job to reach out and engage in constructive discussions with politicians and schools on how we can contribute to an improvement. Particularly with regard to all-day sports, expanding the range of sports on offer at schools is an added value for everyone - for pupils, for schools, for clubs and for society. Sport is education, it promotes holistic development."
Extracurricular sport is an important lever, and the 24,000 soccer clubs organized under the umbrella of the DFB are key. The associations want to do more to help activate this network and intensify cooperation between schools and clubs. This will provide schools with qualified partners for their all-day programs, clubs will gain new members and children will get moving.
The DFB's team of coaches led by Hannes Wolf is working intensively on practical concepts that should be as easy as possible to implement not only in club work, but also in schools. The so-called school of small-sided soccer is based on the content of the training philosophy of Germany and focuses on playful forms in 3-on-3 on various small pitches. The types of sport can vary. Teachers should be encouraged to try out the small forms of play and use them more intensively.
Hannes Wolf, Director of Youth, Training and Development at the DFB, says: "In the school of small-sided soccer, every child is on the move, everyone has ball action, nobody stands around. This ensures maximum participation. The limited space available at many schools can be used to the full in small-sided forms of play, whether in the hall, on the grass or in the playground. The small team sizes also enable a more individual composition of the groups, in which aspects such as playing strength or existing social ties can be taken into account in a more targeted manner."
As part of today's kick-off event for the "Year of Schools", almost 300 interested teachers were trained by Wolf and his team of experts at the DFB Campus in Frankfurt. Offers such as these are to be expanded and made even more visible. The focus is on simple and practical assistance - both for schools and clubs. The soccer associations have long been supporting the federal states in the further development and quality assurance of school sport and have been offering free further and advanced training for teachers for years.
