NetBenefit and Sports Search working to get children active

NetBenefit, one of the UK's most experienced managed hosting providers, has been selected by Sports Search to provide the hosting platform for its online sports and activities resource for schools.  With the start of the new school year, teachers will use Sports Search to match a whole new group of pupils’ physical, physiological and skill profiles, and preferences, with a range of sports and activities.

This great online resource provides young people with detailed information about over 150 sports and activities.  It also gives them direct access to local club information making sure that young people know exactly how and where they can get involved with their chosen activity.

The dedicated servers that sit behind the online system provide scaleable bandwidth to help manage the expected peaks and troughs on the website.  NetBenefit’s managed hosting solution also provides the facility for hosting the sizeable database that the website depends upon. 

Sports Search is based on a system originally used in Australia to help identify the best sportsmen and women.  Sports Search has taken the Australian concept and created an online system built upon the principle of making sport more accessible to everybody rather than just the sporting elite.  The Sports Search database recommends sports which match a young person’s abilities.  The suggestions are based upon analysis of data produced during a series of physical tasks.  Once the results are entered online, Sports Search will calculate the profile for each child’s performance and compare it against the defined UK averages.  A number of sports that match the profile are suggested along with details of where these activities can be enjoyed.

The children also complete an online questionnaire to help identify their current interests and preferences which enables the system to give them further guidance about the most suitable sports, recreational activities and clubs for them.  The national database of clubs is the first of its kind and denotes national governing body affiliated clubs as well as those that have attained the Sport England recognised Club Mark. 

Kate Oldershaw, Project Co-ordinator, Sports Search said, “Everybody is talking about getting children active.  We aim to provide every young person between the ages of 11 and 17 in England with a mechanism that allows them to explore their sporting potential with traditional sports or by introducing them to lesser known sports or activities that they might never have considered.  Visitors will come back to the website again and again as long as it is always reliable and responsive.  The online system absolutely depends upon our hosting provider for its credibility.  This is especially true when the system is being used online during lessons and pupils’ data has to be entered within a short timescale.  As experts in their own field, we can be confident that we are in good hands with NetBenefit."

Colin Bell, sales and marketing director, NetBenefit, said: “With the new school year now starting, Sports Search is a great resource for young people both in school and in their leisure time.  NetBenefit is committed to providing dedicated server solutions that are designed to fit our clients’ requirements and grow with those needs whether they are looking for performance, resilience or high availability.  We are able to ensure that irrespective of the volume of users Sports Search attracts, it remains accessible with fast response times.  This is essential for this user community."

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Notes To Editors:

Established in 1995 and a division of Group NBT plc (LSE: NBT), NetBenefit has become one of the UK's most experienced hosting providers, offering a range of shared and managed hosting services to suit every level of enterprise. Its world-class network infrastructure allows it to guarantee 100% network availability and delivers over 3Gbps bandwidth. With a range of innovative high-end services at sensible prices, which can easily be tailored to meet requirements, NetBenefit’s solutions help businesses to scale new heights. Its customers include organisations such as the England and Wales Cricket Board and the Liberal Democrats. For further information about NetBenefit, please visit www.netbenefit.com.

For more information about NetBenefit:

Please contact Danielle Pereira / Jonathan Bawden at Portfolio Communications on 0207 240 6959 netbenefit@portfoliocomms.com  

About Sports Search

Sports Search is a not-for-profit community interest company whose principal purpose is to increase participation in sports and recreational activities.  Working closely with individual schools, school sports partnerships and local authorities, the Sports Search system has been released into over 300 secondary schools around the country from the five Olympic boroughs, to Birmingham and north to Manchester, west to Somerset and Wiltshire and south to Hampshire.

The Sports Search system is an online tool that helps 11 to 17 year olds to identify what sports and recreational activities they are physically and attitudinally suited to before providing clear sign posts to clubs where they can pursue any choices made.

It was developed in close partnership with key national organisations Sport England, the NSPCC and Brunel University Sports Science Department.  Sports Search is also a business honours partner of the Youth Sport Trust.