Sports development is a complex and insightful topic which has its positives and its negatives whether this is a political issue, someone’s own personal issues or just how it has developed through time. Within this essay I will talk about several topics such as my personal experiences which I have learnt throughout my first year of University, how I have managed with the different styles of learning compared to college, mine and other’s knowledge of sport development and the affects history has had on it. This will link to the national occupational standards throughout. Sport development systems have two main objectives: to increase the number of participants actively engaged in sport and to enhance the quality of performances in sport (Green, 2005). Sport Development did not just happen overnight there is a lot of history behind its development which happened over a long period of time from 1900’s to this present day. These influences have been British Public Schools, boys playing football in school (use of rules/ control) the value was followed through to working environment/lives. Allowing the sport to become gradually more codified in schools. (For example pitch size regulation in 1900) (Harrow p.13). WW1 the military movement, religious movements and nations and nationalism these are just a few (Houlihan & Green, 2011). Sports development is a key component of contemporary British Sport. The sport development system is based around the central Government policy and local authorities, from Britain hosting the Olympics games to providing exercise classes for the elderly this is how broad it can be. In public schools they realized that it provided a place for the dispersal of excess energy, so that public schools use their energy in a positive way and not towards anti-social or criminal activity. It also helped promote good health which reduced sickness caused to the economy (Houlihan & Green, 2011). Initiatives such as Sportsmark and Gold Star schemes were proposed to be awarded to schools that met specified criteria for the effective promotion of sport, this was shown to have a big impact on schools as they began to concentrate a bit more on their sport clubs, sporting facilities, and even trying to get the status of a specialist sports college e.g. Gateshead (Houlihan, 2000). In the 1980s Great Britain Sports Council attempted to retain a combined sports development strategy centered on the model of the sports development continuum, which theorized sport as comprising four tightly integrated elements known as foundation, participation, performance and excellence. While the model had its faults, it proved to be strong and to be an effective image of the interrelatedness of apparently different policies and interests. The model provided a degree of academic reason to the broad range of investment required to support ‘mass participation’ and ‘elite development’ which was key. Also to the range of contrasting and potentially aggressive organizations that required a share of Sports Council and later National Lottery funding. The model had the advantage of linking the interests of elite performers with those of the general participant. More importantly, the sports continuum provided support for a broader view of PE in schools than the government was prepared to accept (Houlihan, 2000). Although mass participation and elite development are referred to being quite similar in the section dealing with further and higher education, the concern is with the potential contribution of universities to the development of elite talent. More importantly, the absence of any discussion of the role and contribution of local authorities in the area of mass participation is explicable only in terms of the persistent hostility of the Conservatives to local government. Although the feminist movem