One Year On: Active Campus

It’s been a whole year since Jack, our Active Campus Co-ordinator, joined the team so we took a stroll down memory lane with him and found out what’s coming next.

Happy one year at UHI Moray, Jack! How do you feel you have settled into the role now that you have a full academic year under your belt?

I can’t believe it has been a year already. The Sport and Fitness department made settling in really easy to be honest!

I think we have made a lot of progress on implementing general provisions, as well as targeted provisions. When I first started, there was already a successful staff badminton club on campus and our lecturer Stephen Gertsen’s amazing table tennis club. Outwith these clubs, we didn’t have anything in place for students and staff. Since then, we have now got a full sport timetable as well as our new fitness and wellbeing timetable.

How has your role evolved since you first started?

Over the year, the role has grown a lot. When I first started, my priority was to get a foot hold on campus and get to know as many staff and students as possible. Raising awareness of what the active campus project is and why it exists was always going to be important, and one of the ways we did this was the Football vs Homophobia project, which gave us some positive coverage around campus.

I also spent a lot of time supporting different community events with students, as well as inviting the public onto campus for our own events, which has led to some positive partnerships being formed.

Recently, the focus has been to encourage students to participate in sport and active lifestyles beyond the active campus project. There are various ways we have done this:

• Our football group now play in an organised 5 aside league on Monday evenings at the Gleaner arena. This group have since told me they intend to continue playing after the league is concluded.
• We have the LGBT+ Pride Inclusion Hub which sees local clubs coming onto campus to deliver taster sessions for staff and students. A few students attending this have since let me know that they joined clubs off the back of this which is great. This allows us to make sure that the activity of participants within the Active Campus project is sustained and allows the project to then identify other areas that need attention.
• The Active Campus project is also having an impact on curricular delivery. We are supporting the SCQF Level 5 Sport and Fitness students by running the Duke of Edinburgh bronze award. This ties in with their regular course seamlessly, and also encourages the students to focus on self-care and physical activity outwith their studies.

How has the Active Campus programme grown throughout the year?

Raw numbers don’t always indicate value, however the number of participations from this year, in comparison to when I started the role in 2023 have almost doubled:

• 2023/24
  • 27 sessions
  • 230 participants
• 2024/25
  • 49 sessions
  • 536 participants

More importantly, we now have more demographics of the campus being active! I think the best achievements are the ones not often seen or things that are not tangible. For example:

• The LGBT+ Sport Inclusion Hub project getting national recognition from SportScotland. It was quite humbling seeing a project that Robin Paterson, Community Sport Hubs Development Officer, worked so hard on receive this recognition.
• One of the participants of the LGBT+ Sport Inclusion Hub let us know that they can no longer attend the taster sessions because they have since had such a boost in confidence that they have started attending a mainstream session at one of the participating clubs!
• Seeing our Supported Education students make it into the national Scottish Rugby newsletter in July. These students, who have learning difficulties and/or physical disabilities, took part in Scottish Rugby’s Tartan Touch programme. This seen the group participate in weekly rugby sessions with simplified rules. After submitting the evidence and monitoring to Scottish Rugby, the group made the national newsletter which was great to see!

What has been your highlights over the past year?

There have been a lot of highlights, but I think on the whole, student engagement and staff support are up there.

We now have students delivering provisions on campus including volleyball, football, basketball, yoga and weightlifting which is incredible compared to provisions in place this time last year. It gives our students invaluable experience and also allows me the time to work on new projects.

Another highlight has been the positive partnerships we have created along the way with groups such as Active Schools, Outfit Moray and the CLD team. This has led to various opportunities for our students, such as various work placement opportunities.

One such example of a partnership in action is with Active Schools and Scottish Curling. We are currently supporting a Moray-wide curling development plan which has seen students upskilling to deliver floor curling to primary school aged children. There are around 30 children coming along on Monday nights which is great to see, and our students are doing an amazing job delivering the sessions.

What’s next for Active Campus at UHI Moray?

Now that we are into a new academic year, my priority is going to be on Disability Inclusion within campus sport. We are currently delivering the Curling 360 programme to our Supported Learning students, and also have two bespoke events planned for students with additional support needs. We have also invited some local groups to come along and join in the fun at these events.

Thinking more long-term, I am going to record and analyse data more thoroughly. Right now, our data collection guidance from SportScotland solely looks at participation numbers with no greater detail. I am keen to find away to record distinct participants, gender, and if participants have a disability. This will help us identifying groups who may require more support to be active on campus.

Find out more about the on-campus activities for students and staff