Sport students set to sprint ahead following new partnership agreement

Sport students at the University look set for even healthier employability after the signing of a new agreement.

This week Northamptonshire Sport, the county’s Active Partnership, officially endorsed two of the University’s most popular sport degrees in Sport Development and Physical Education and Sport Coaching.

The endorsement scheme is pioneering, being a first by any of England’s 43 Active Partnerships, and will ensure not only closer strategic working by the two institutions but produce a greater social impact and improved student experience.

The agreement was made official as part of a formal signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the two institutions.  The MOU was signed by John Sinclair, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Science and Technology and Chris Holmes, Director of NSport.

John Sinclair, Dean of FAST and Chris Holmes, director of NSport, sign the MOU. Behind them are the University’s Dr Peter Jones, Dr Rob Lyon and Dr Declan Ryan and NSport’s Jackie Brown.

The MOU formalises NSport’s and the University’s relationship and supports various community health and sport initiatives in the county, through its student work placement programme, in turn increasing students’ future employability.

John Sinclair said: “We have been working closely with NSport for the past two years, so it’s wonderful to officially ‘sign-off’ on this new agreement that will benefit our students and wider communities.

“Already, 10 of our second-year sports students are engaged on placements across many exciting settings. From working with disability sports organisations and using physical activity to improve people’s mental health, they are also taking with them with University’s social impact, Changemaker ethos.”

Chris Holmes added: “The ink is only just dry on this formalising of our working relationship with the University, but it is already bearing fruit.

“Northamptonshire is already being further helped on its way to becoming a healthier county thanks to the hard work of these students and the academic sport team at the University.”

Find out more about the Sport Development and Physical Education degree.

Find out more about the Sport Coaching degree.

Find out more about the work of NSport.