At Parkdale we are committed to children’s emotional wellbeing, Physical Education, healthy lifestyles and long-term health. We have begun working with the Creating Active Schools Partnership to access research and professional development, to increase and improve physical activity in school. 

Why an active school?

• Regular bursts of activity keep our brains active and makes our lessons more engaging. Being physically active in lessons helps us to focus and learn.
• Physical activity is shown to improve concentration and learning outcomes. 
• Sitting for long periods leads to poorer health. Sedentary behaviour can slow the metabolism. 
• Moving boosts our emotional wellbeing! It releases endorphins, reduces cortisol and gives us the opportunity to connect with our classmates. 
• Moving builds active habits; this isn’t about PE and sports, but about developing simple healthy habits.

What will we be doing?

In our lessons we have pledged that 

• No KS1 child should sit still for more than 20 minutes
• No KS2 child should sit still for more than 30 minutes 

How will this impact lessons?

• Lessons throughout Parkdale will be active, we will be focusing on movement and activity. Children will be up and engaged with learning activities, wake and shakes, moving to answer etc. Lots of short bursts activities will keep us invigorated! 

In play time we have committed to: 

• Using our wonderful environment effectively. Children will be supported to access the climbing wall, MUGA, Outdoor gym, Trim Trail etc. 
• Adding an additional 10 minutes of play to our days when our class needs it. This play may be skipping, playing games, running, hopscotch, climbing etc. 

Enrichment Time

• Every Friday afternoon each class signs up for a different Enrichment activity that offers the children 45 minutes of physical activity. These have already proven to be very popular! After the Enrichment sessions we have retrieval time, reviewing our week’s learning and looking forward to the weeks ahead.