Increasing active time in the school day using GO Challenges

Since the introduction of the PE and School Sport Premium there has been a great focus on increasing the amount of physical activity in schools.

Evidence from Sport England shows that children who are active every day have the highest mental wellbeing scores and in a culture of increasing need for mental health support and provision this is a statistic that is hard to ignore. This has led to the current aim of 30 active minutes each day in primary schools and the recommendation of including activity interventions, such as the Daily Mile, into the school day.

Recent research has shown that single component interventions such as active classroom breaks can have a positive impact on the physical activity levels of children as well as being each for teachers to implement. Difficulties faced by teachers include a lack of space and time to implement more complex activities into classrooms on a daily basis.

Go Outside challenges work to provide ideas for teachers to include a range of physical activity options into their repertoire, offering ideas for PE lessons as well as simple activities which can be done during a breaktime. These challenges can be used in isolation, as a monthly target for all classes to complete or in combination with previous challenges to gradually increase the range and amount of physical activity included in a typical week. This is a sustainable and simple change which all teachers can implement to show they are having a positive impact on the amount of physical activity pupils complete during school time.

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