Aviva Launches Elevating Athletics Fund

In support of its long-term sponsorship of UK Athletics, insurance brand Aviva has launched an ‘Elevating Athletics Fund’, pledging to provide practical training and support to every single sports teacher in the UK.

With London 2012 just over two years away, Aviva’s positioning comes in response to new research that revealed that over half of the UK’s PE teachers feel they need further training and better facilities to teach athletics effectively.

Aviva’s Elevating Athletics Fund will provide support in three ways; free places on athletics teaching courses for every school in the UK (over 30,000 schools), detailed curriculum resource packs for all teachers and the chance for schools to win a £10,000 sports grant for facility upgrades.

Aviva will also arrange a series of elite athlete visits to schools, to help inspire students.

Amongst other figures, the study showed that 52% of teachers feel they need further training to teach athletics effectively while 63% of teachers believe their schools lack the facilities to teach athletics effectively.

In addition, the study highlighted that over half of all parents (58%) would like their child to be taught athletics over all other sports, including football. 63% of parents believe that PE classes should be treated as seriously as other academic subjects.