A GROUP of Barrhead schools are looking to increase sporting opportunities for underprivileged children.

St Mark’s Primary revealed the ambitions after the school received a £10,000 Awards for All grant on behalf of the St Luke’s cluster last month.

Teaching staff hope to remove the financial barriers faced by Barrhead and Neilston’s most deprived families when a child wants to take part in sport out of school.

The cluster will use the money on a needs-only basis throughout the year to prevent low-income parents from having to fork out for equipment, attendance costs or community sports club memberships.

Nicola Roberts, acting principal teacher at St Mark’s Primary, outlined the background to the funding application.

She said: “Supporting families to access community-based opportunities will give them a better quality of life and encourage them to engage fully in community life.

“We know through evidence that children who are physically active also have a much higher attainment level, so we’re also supporting them to be successful in life and continuing their development when school life stops.

“Our active school coordinator worked together with the St Luke’s cluster.

“They discussed the possibility or a way of accessing funds for kids who are underprivileged or families who don’t have finances or possibilities to send children to clubs in community.

“The idea was the grant would allow them to do that.”

Staff at St Mark’s Primary will be joined by St John’s Primary, St Thomas’ Primary and St Luke’s High teachers in identifying pupils whose families are from the lower end of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD).

Each school will then contact relevant households to offer assistance.

Ms Roberts added: “We are in a positive position as a school cluster in that we already have this SIMD information and can easily target families from the lowest deciles.

“We will use the platform and relationships that our schools already have to administer the support we can provide.

“We’ve factored in costs for everything involved in participating in sport as we don’t want to put any pressure on low decile families to pay for accessing opportunities, therefore we’ve included weekly attendance costs, yearly memberships, as well as having the ability to support families with equipment to fully engage with clubs.

“This may include having to purchase a judo or karate suit, a pair of football boots to train properly or a tennis racket if they start to play in competitions.”