As we posted last week, we have engaged with a national programme which aims to promote more active lifestyles, Creating Active Schools. We believe that this is going to become a major concern for the next government, with pressure from health professionals and sports governing bodies to address the crisis in fitness in the UK. Whether that happens or not though, we believe that it is best for our children that they are as active as possible. It might also make the school day more fun!

We have made two new commitments to set us off on our journey:

  1. To build in an extra, guided 15 minutes of physical activity per day, every day. Not extra PE, but less formal activity and play. Some examples: just going for a stroll, a jog, going on the outdoor gym, the trim trail, time on the climbing wall, skipping, a game of catch, hula-hooping, yoga, dance… This commitment is to rise to 30 minutes from September.

2. That no child will sit still for more than 20 minutes in KS1 and 30 minutes in KS2. Lessons will be re-structured to include a burst of movement/physical activity, which may or may not be connected to the ongoing teaching and learning.

We think these commitments make us unique, certainly locally, and will put us ‘ahead of the game’ on this. We think this is a very positive addition to our existing offer. You can discover more about our engagement with CAS here, on a new dedicated page: https://parkdale-primary.co.uk/about-us-activeschool/

We will monitor the impact of this on children’s wellbeing and learning and we’ll be asking them how they feel about it with extra questions in our end of year survey.