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Play.sport Evaluation

Project Leader(s): 
Project contact person(s): 

NZCER has been contracted by Sport New Zealand to provide evaluation services for Play.sport during 2016-2022.

What is Play.sport?

Play.sport aims to build a sustainable system that ensures all young people in a community have access to quality, fun and challenging physical activity, physical education, and sport experiences that help them to be active, engaged, learning, and succeeding.

Play.sport is a long term, multi-faceted approach led by Sport New Zealand in partnership with schools, Regional Sports Trusts, sporting organisations and providers, community groups, and government agencies.

Participating schools have access to initial support and professional learning for 3 years.

Play.sport is being trialled in four communities in two phases. Phase 1 started in 2016 with two communities: Upper Hutt and Waitakere. Phase 1 involves around 45 primary, intermediate, and secondary schools.

Phase 2 started in 2019 and involves two new communities (Southland and Waikato) and around 40 schools. The Southland initiative is called Made to Move, and the Waikato initiative is called Taakaro-ora – Active wellbeing.

About the NZCER evaluation

The NZCER evaluation has two main aims:

1) Short-term: providing information to assist in building Play.sport (a process focus)

2) Longer-term: documenting the main outcomes and changes to practice that occur for schools, students, and communities (an outcomes focus)

For more information contact sally.boyd@nzcer.org.nz

More information about Play.sport

Open the link for more information about Play.sport 

To hear more about the role physical activity and sport can play in education, listen to a podcast from the Teaching Council. Play.sport is one of the initiatives discussed in 'What is the role of sport in education?'

Read some of the findings and stories from the evaluation of Play.sport at: 

Supporting schools | Sport New Zealand - Ihi Aotearoa (sportnz.org.nz)

Read the evaluation report from the first year (2016) below.

Play.sport Evaluation project publications:

Year published Title Publication type
2017 Reviewing the game plan: What can be learnt from the first year of Play.sport? Research report