At Chance to Shine, we work to accurately measure the effect we are having in the areas in which we deliver. We work closely with our County Board partners to assess the impact that we are having on the children and young adults who are benefitting from getting the opportunity to play the sport.

You can read our latest Impact Report covering the period from September 2019-March 2021 here.

Areas of Impact

In order to understand what cricket can do to support young people, we monitor our impact on the following outcome areas (click on them to see the results):

• Creating Opportunities
• Physical Wellbeing
• Personal Development
• Mental Wellbeing
• Social Wellbeing

What we measure

We work closely with our delivery partners across the country to measure quantitive and qualitative data.

In schools, coaches record data including the number of sessions delivered, the number of young people who have taken part and teacher engagement within the session. At Street sessions, with parental consent, we record more in-depth data including ethnic background and whether the young people are playing cricket in any other settings. Accurate reporting is a crucial part of our agreements with our delivery partners, and we conduct randomised spot-checks to ensure that the data is correct. We also conduct internally checks on the data to remove duplications and avoid inaccurate measurements. 

Every year, we conduct surveys to assess qualitative outcomes. In 2019, we surveyed 1,298 teachers, 4,547 school children and 1,147 Street cricketers to understand their opinions on our work. In 2021, we did our first survey of Street cricketers parents, with 93 respondents – we’re hoping to expand this over the next 12 months. These surveys include questions to assess how our work impacts on the outcome areas outline above.

We often talk about elements like ‘resilience’ or ‘inspiration’ that may be harder to refine questions for, in these cases we use questions that get to the heart of the aspect. So, for example, to understand resilience, we ask children how likely they are to try something again if they fail first-time around. 

From the 2021/21 academic year, we will be conducting pre and post programme surveys for teachers, to give us a clear understanding of how our programme can affect different factors within the school.

How we measure ourselves

To understand how our work is making a difference to young people, we use national benchmark figures where possible. For example, Sport England data provides national averages for statements like “I enjoy taking part in sport and exercise”. We ask our Street participants the same question to assess whether our work is having an impact.

We have also commissioned independent evaluations of different areas of our programmes to have an external opinion on the effectiveness of what we do. In 2019, the Centre for Sport, Physical Education and Activity Research (spear) at Canterbury Christ Church University assessed our Secondary Girls Leadership programme. You can read their findings here. This is an approach we will continue in the future where possible.