THOUSANDS of youngsters across Hampshire will miss out on sport in school if the Government presses ahead with controversial plans to slash funding.

Education bosses fear the move to axe the £162m given nationally for School Sports Partnerships (SSPs) will drastically cut the number of youngsters keeping fit and active, and could ultimately harm exam results.

A petition signed by half a million people is today due to be handed over to Downing Street by teachers, students and sports stars heading to Westminster to lobby MPs.

The national petition has been backed by thousands of Hampshire residents.

Across the county, there are 13 SSPs covering hundreds of schools, which are now under threat because Tory Education Secretary Michael Gove says they have failed because not enough kids play competitive sport.

He has argued that just one in five pupils aged between five and 16 regularly takes part in inter-school sport, and only 40 per cent do the same within their own schools.

But those who back SSPs say they have led to a massive increase in the number of children regularly taking part in sports, with many trying out new activities for the first time.

Nick Ainsworth, the partnership development manager for the New Forest SSP and head of PE at Testwood Sports College, says the mood among colleagues is “deflated and frustrated”.

He told the Daily Echo: “We also feel angered in some ways. They’re trying to say it doesn’t work by using one very small statistic that doesn’t fully explain things anyway. It doesn’t take in the real picture of what people are doing.”

In the 67 schools covered by the New Forest SSP, which receives around £300,000 a year in funding, 47 per cent of the 20,000 youngsters are now taking part in regular competition with other schools. For intra-school competition, the figure rises to 83 per cent.

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Mr Ainsworth insists the success stories do not end there.

When the New Forest partnership started up in 2005, children were averaging 107 minutes of exercise in school a week. They are now up to 125 minutes, with 97 per cent of students having access to two hours of PE on the curriculum, compared to 55 per cent five years ago. Some 61 per cent get three hours of PE and sport every week at school.

Alex Barnard, head teacher at Noadswood Sports College in Dibden, said he believes the SSPs have been a major success in encouraging kids to play sports.

He said: “Mr Gove seems to look back on some halcyon days when it was better than this, but I don’t think it ever has been.

“The cuts that are coming are going to be quite devastating, more so to primary and junior schools than secondaries, because that’s where the major focus has been.

“Children who are active during the school day and after school do actually have much more in their lives and it creates a much more positive attitude to school, and that could be lost.

“It’s about the whole team ethos and joining in and taking part. The healthy mind and healthy body is a very old saying, but it holds particularly true.

“The sooner you can get a child into the habit of being healthy the better, but a lot of primary schools won’t have the resources to ensure that sport continues.

“If you lose that early on it becomes increasingly difficult to build that into teenage life.”

Pam Noél, the partnership development manager in Southampton and Redbridge Community School teacher, said the SSP has made a massive difference to youngsters’ lives in the city.

She said: “We have now got every single primary school doing two hours’ curriculum of PE, which is brilliant. Our three-hour participation has also gone up 16 per cent since last year. There have been a range of opportunities we have been able to provide to students, including new activities such as climbing, boxing and street dance. There are lots of after-school clubs and those are opportunities that weren’t available before.”

But there is hope for the future of sports in schools. The outcry against the cuts has reportedly opened up some divisions within the coalition Government. David Cameron initially labelled SSPs “a complete failure” but after criticism of the plans, especially while he was in Switzerland promoting England’s World Cup bid, signalled a rethink last week after saying a new policy would be unveiled soon.

A spokesman for the Department for Education said the proposals are part of measures designed to give schools more say over how they spend their cash. He said: “We will not be pursuing a centralised PE and Sports strategy. Instead we will be redeploying resources, and people, to put a new emphasis on competitive sport.

“We will be announcing how we will spend the money we’ve allocated for school sport in due course.”