At Sportspark we are passionate about encouraging users to become interested in fitness from a young age. To help this, we already offer Fit-Kidz courses where, once completed, under 16’s are able to use the fitness centre. During this course, one of our Fitness Advisors will follow a carefully constructed programme to ensure that your child is fully inducted into a range of the equipment available for use in our Fitness Centre.
And now, following the trial of our 6-week FitKidz youth memberships this summer, we are pleased to announce that brand new membership options are now available to our FitKidz Graduates aged 12-15.
In line with industry research, and ukactive guidance, and in keeping with the Sportspark child supervision policy, from 4th September 2023 Sportspark is pleased to be able to offer:
FitKidz Independent Gold
For just £19.50 per month they will receive:
View our group exercise timetable here. Classes marked YM are classes available to our Youth Members.
Please be aware that there are only a limited number of these memberships available and they may be capped at any time. In order to reserve your membership please speak to a member of the team today.
Children will be able to use any of the equipment that they have been shown by the Fitness Advisors. Subsequent workout sessions will not be directly supervised, however there will always be a member of staff within the Fitness Centre should your child need assistance.
Getting consistent time with family and friends has never been more of a challenge. Prising your child away from their device, balancing your work and home life and making time in today’s demanding and fast-paced environment means we often put things on hold or simply ‘don’t have time’.
However, the benefits of social time are well documented and strong, supportive relationships are important in maintaining emotional wellbeing and in particular for a child’s social and emotional development. People have long talked about the importance of shared mealtimes but what about shared activity time?
Although it may sound somewhat ‘cheesy’, your wellbeing is not simply restricted to your physical health. True “wellbeing” includes numerous additional components such as your mental health, your relationships, feeling socially connected, having the ability to relax, enjoy activities and find happiness. I am sure if I asked you all to describe your perfect day we would get a multitude of different answers. We all have different passions, things that we enjoy, people we love spending time with, and I am sure that your perfect day will incorporate as many of these things as possible.
At the same time if we were asked to write down a list of our weekly plans we might find that the things we would like to do are often pushed to the bottom of the pile below the list of the things we must to do.
If we could work out ways of combining these tasks it could have huge positive impact on our lives.
Undertaking physical activity and spending time with family or friends are two such aspects that can more easily be brought together.
At Sportspark we often see and hear first-hand how having individually active members of your social circle or family doesn’t always help with contact time. For example, juggling one child’s sporting commitments with another’s social activities in and around work, household chores and such like is a challenge that we need to be creative in overcoming.
Rather than scrolling your phone on the pool balcony or catching up with emails in your car why not go for a swim, run, go to a class, use the gym or book a badminton court while your child is with their club or on their course? With so many activities available at Sportspark there really is something for everyone. Why not use the time spent on site to participate yourself or with your other children, partner or friends?
Rather than inhibiting activity you often find that adults are often more motivated to exercise when they know that a child is watching (as the parents race at the child sports days clearly shows)!!
Frighteningly though, just 14% of 13-15 year old boys and 8% of 13-15 year old girls in England are meeting the daily recommendations for physical activity.
Although throughout their younger years children can be encouraged and motivated by seeing what their parents, and influential adults, are doing we see that friendships and peer-influence become increasingly important as they move into adolescence. A young person’s friends can help to promote or discourage physical activity so being able to undertake this together is hugely important.
A reported barrier to participation was a lack of targeted activities and programmes. Having to go to a ‘baby’ class or not go at all isn’t much of a choice. At Sportspark our new memberships, available for Fitkidz graduates aged 12-15, allow them to participate alongside their family or friends as part of our main facility programme.
For information of the membership options available and to make the most of everything Sportspark has to offer please speak to a member of the team today.