Benefits of the schemes

The main benefits for the children taking part in the Bees Academy activities include improvements to their:

• all-round athleticism
• attention span
• listening skills
• motor skills
• balance
• flexibility
• fitness levels
• confidence
• coordination
• respect for others

Because the ratio of coaches to children is kept to a relatively low level, it allows the coaches to focus better on the youngsters and this hopefully will allow the children to develop their skills better. From our perspective this gives us the situation where the athletes get a good grounding of all events which will stand them in good stead later in their sporting career, and ultimately a much better standard of athletes coming into mainstream athletics (or some other sport).

We adopt a structured approach to training in that children will be taken through a programme appropriate to their development.

The progress of athletes, in particular those in school years 7 and 8, will be monitored and where appropriate we will recommend moving to more event specific training with the BB Academy, which feeds in to the Highly successful Blackheath and Bromley Harriers AC.