Special Olympics NL strongly believes that when children and youth with an intellectual disability are provided early instruction in the area of basic motor skills and developmentally appropriate play, there is an excellent opportunity for improvement in physical, social, and cognitive abilities. 

Active Start & FUNdamentals are nationally developed programs that can be run in any community. SONL provides coach education for these programs in the form of their NCCP Coaching Young Athletes course and each participant receives either the Active Start and/or FUNdamentals manual - a book with 12 lesson plans, information about intellectual disabilities, and other great information to put in your coaching tool box.

Young Athletes - In the Schools

Primary / Elementary School

FUNdamentals is a wonderful tie-in for schools; the program can be implemented as a lunchtime intramural program.  Students come to the gym to have dedicated instruction time to work on their physical literacy and experience success in learning and developing their fundamental movement skills.  They will be the winners!

Training fundamental movement skills early in life is critical, not only to help learn sport-specific skills, but also to ensure individuals have the ability and desire to be active for life.

Junior High

In Junior High athletes move from learning and mastering their fundamental movement skills into learning sport rules and sport-specific skills.  Special Olympics has created a Multi-Sport Youth Guide which is a manual very similar to Active Start and FUNdamentals in which it breaks down several different sports into easily followed lesson plans.  These lessons help students become familiar with different Special Olympics sports with a focus on team sports to provide the camaraderie and social experiences that many benefit from within a sports environment.

High School

Mastering fundamental movement skills, learning sport rules and sport-specific skills naturally leads into become capable, able and wanting to participate in a tournament. Special Olympics NL has brought Unified Sports to High Schools. Unified Sports is an inclusive program that combines Special Olympics athletes (individuals with an intellectual disability) and partners (individuals without an intellectual disability) on teams for training and competition.

Schools host a Unified Tournaments where teams use Special Olympics unique divisioning rules and allows for a wonderful experience for all involved.