So what is a positive activity anyway?

Surely there must be a list somewhere of what counts as a positive activity, and what doesn’t? With a nice list of categories which each activity can fall into? Well, as it turns out there isn’t.

So where can we find a definition of positive activities, how can we work out what counts, and how should we categorise them?

Tracking down the definition
The duty on local authorities to secure access for young people to positive activities has been retro-fitted into the 1996 Education Act by way of the 2006 Education and Inspections Act. So, at section 507B of the Education Act 1996 now exists the requirement that a local authority in England must:

“so far as reasonably practicable, secure for qualifying young persons in the authority’s area access to –
a)    sufficient educational leisure-time activities which are for the improvement of their well-being, and sufficient facilities for such activities; and
b)    sufficient recreational leisure-time activities which are for the improvement of their well-being, and sufficient facilities for such activities.”

Section 2.10 of the statutory guidance helps tie down the definition of well-being, linking it to the Every Child Matters outcomes.

2.10.    The definition of ‘well-being’ in the legislation reflects the five ‘Every Child Matters’ Outcomes.  Activities which do not result in an improvement in well-being and which do not help meet these outcomes are not within the scope of the new duty.

What of the two types of activity suggested above? Educational leisure-time activities, and Recreational leisure-time activities. Well – given both are ‘leisure-time’ activities they are clearly meant to take place outside formal school time – and the Statutory guidance notes that ‘education’ and ‘recreation’ need not be mutually exclusive (there can be activities that are both recreational and educational). Local authorities must, however, provide enough of both types of activity – so its not enough to call all the after-school clubs recreational as well as educational and be done with it.

Here’s how ‘educational’ activities are described in the guidance:

‘Educational leisure-time activities’ include provision such as homework or special interest clubs, out of school hours coaching in artistic, sporting or other physical activities and learning opportunities available through facilities such as field centres and outdoors activity centres that provide residential, weekend and holiday-time learning opportunities. Volunteering activity will also fall within this category of activity, where young people gain valuable non-formal educational benefits from the experience.

The guidance goes on to add that educational activities must be provided which are specifically:

“for the improvement of young people’s personal and social development.  This sub-set of ‘educational leisure-time activity’ relates to activities which are delivered using youth work methods and approaches.”

Recreational activities get a bit of a quicker description – and the Statutory guidance sets these down by saying:

“‘Recreational leisure-time activities’ include sports and informal physical activities, as well as a wide range of cultural activities including music, performing and visual arts.”

What’s in and what’s out?
Whilst the guidance, in the end, leaves it up to local authorities to judge for themselves what constitutes a positive activity or not (although the final decision in the case of a dispute rests with the courts) we’ve put together the following flow chart which we think captures the legislation and guidance above in a fairly brief form.

What categories should we use?
Once you know what counts as a positive activity – the next challenges is to categorise the activity.

At the moment Plings uses four top-level categories to divide up the positive activities added into our central data store:

• Creative and Cultured
• Entertain Me
• Get Active
• Get Involved

We also allow free-text key-words and we’ve been working on finding other possible sets of categories… but those will have to wait for a future blog post.