Healthy Active Futures

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Author: Sarah Price

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Inequalities in Activity Levels: The Importance of Physical Activity

As educators, we all know the power of movement. It is not just about physical health; it’s about building confidence, resilience, and a love of learning. Unfortunately, recent data paints a concerning picture of children’s physical activity levels in England. Over half (53%) of children and young people are not meeting the recommended 60 minutes of daily physical activity.

That is a statistic that should give us all pause.  To add to this:

  • Activity levels among children aged 7-9 are the lowest (40%).
  • Only 44% of children from the least affluent families are meeting the Chief Medical Officers’ guidelines, compared to 55% of children from the most affluent families.
  • The gender gap in activity levels is already evident in infant school (Years 1-2).

We have work to do.

We know dedicated primary teachers and headteachers are doing fantastic work in challenging circumstances. Time and resources are precious commodities, and the pressure to deliver across the curriculum is immense. However, let us take a moment to consider why prioritising physical activity matters so much:

● Active Children Learn Better: Research consistently shows that physical activity improves children’s cognitive function, attention and engagement in the classroom. It is a win-win; active bodies lead to active minds, ready to absorb knowledge and tackle new challenges.

● Building Life Skills Through Movement: Beyond academic performance, physical activity is a powerful tool for developing essential life skills. Teamwork, resilience, self-discipline, and communication – all these qualities are fostered on the playground, in an active classroom, and on the sports field. These are the skills that will help our children thrive, not just in school, but in life.

● Mental Wellbeing and Social Connection: In today’s world, supporting children’s mental well-being is more important than ever. Physical activity is a proven mood booster, reducing stress and anxiety while fostering a sense of belonging and connection. We all want our children to feel happy, confident, and connected – physical activity can play a vital role in achieving that.

Go Well: Your Partner in Creating Active Opportunities 

At Go Well, we understand the challenges facing primary schools. Our mission is to empower you to create a school environment where movement is celebrated, where physical activity is seamlessly integrated into the school day, and where every child discovers the joy of being active.

How can we help?

● SMILE Days: Inject a burst of excitement and energy into your school with a Go Well SMILE Day. These fun-filled activity days introduce children to a wide range of sports and activities – from Dragonball to Hoopstarz to Quidditch. It is a fantastic way to broaden horizons, spark new passions, and create positive memories that will last a lifetime. Find out more here.

● Specialist PE Teacher Support: Whether you need help with curriculum planning, assessment or developing teacher confidence, our team of highly qualified PE specialists is here to provide tailored support. We work collaboratively with you to identify your school’s specific needs and develop strategies that maximise the impact of your PE provision.

● Move with Max: Move with Max is an evidence-based movement program aimed at EYFS that teaches fundamental movement skills through readily available storybooks. Supporting children to move well in the early years sets the foundation for a lifelong love of physical activity. We offer various support packages to help you maximise Move with Max in your school, including taster sessions, bespoke support for your EYFS teacher and a full-day CPD course.

Let Go Well be your partner in building a brighter, healthier and more active future for your pupils. Together we can make a real difference.  Contact info@go-well.org for further information on the services available to your school or MAT or view our brochure here.

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Go Well Blog

PE – more than keeping fit

Children doing PE with teacher

Do you find PE, school sport and physical activity generally come off ‘second best’ at your school? Lessons or activities are cancelled to make way for school photo shoots, plays, exams or tests…

While many people understand the benefits of being active in terms of our physical health, less well understood are the wider benefits and how PESSPA can be used to help children to develop key skills and values. These wide-ranging benefits are often overlooked and there are few schools that capitalise on the full potential that PE offers as an educational tool.

What are the wider benefits of PE?

A subject frequently dominated by traditional sports such as football, netball and athletics; teams and fixtures, there can be a limited understanding amongst the school staff team as to the wider benefits of PE.

PE can support all-round development, from intellectual to emotional. Children learn how to negotiate, collaborate, compromise, make decisions, lead and communicate. PESSPA also supports resilience and determination. 

How to overcome challenges, plan, set goals, adapt, assess and manage risks can all be learned, developed and practised through PE.

3 ways to use physical activity to support personal development 

Here are three activities that you can use to support personal development in your school:

Teamwork, collaboration and leadership: Divide the class into groups and give each group the task of creating their own game, physical activity routine or exercise session. As well as working together to decide on the structure of the game or activity, they would need to decide on rules, what equipment is needed and plan how they will explain and deliver the session. 

Empathy and kindness: Have the group form a circle (or two circles if a large group), players must pass the ball across the group to someone. The person throwing the ball must say something kind about the person they are throwing to. Everyone must be passed the ball and the ball must continue to move so there is limited time to think. 

Self-motivation, determination and resilience: Set a series of short challenges or activities eg squats, burpees, lunges, torso twists. Start a timer and each child counts how many of each activity they can do in 3 minutes. They record their results and repeat the challenges weekly to see if they can perform more repetitions in the 3 minutes. 

Further information

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Could gamification help more children be active?

Children running and playing games

As teachers and coaches, we are always looking for new ways to engage children in learning and activity. How and the way we teach is constantly evolving, even in PE. 

While we don’t want to jump on to every new bandwagon that comes along, there are some trends that are worth exploring further, such as gamification.

What is gamification and how does it work in PE?

Rest assured, it isn’t about sitting playing video games! Gamification is an educational approach that looks to motivate students by harnessing the elements of video games that make these games so engaging, and applying them to learning. The intention is to capture interest and inspire children to get involved.

Some children thrive on traditional games such as football, netball or cricket, but there are many who struggle to enjoy PE or physical activity. Gamification could be a way to capture their interest and inspire them to be active.

How can gamification of PE lessons help your students?

Children are spending increasing amounts of time gaming. Rather than competing with this, incorporating elements of video games into your PE lessons and physical activities can help make these sessions relatable, it can help your pupils make connections. They are also more likely to get excited about something that replicates an area of their life that they enjoy. 

Studies have shown that gamification can greatly increase motivation and engagement. It can reduce disruptive behaviour and encourage children and adolescents to be more active.

How can you introduce gamification into PE and physical activities?

Setting a challenge where players (pupils) need to make choices to overcome the challenge, collecting items, exploring, achieving mini-goals, these are all ways to introduce gamification into your lesson. 

At the simplest level, gamification includes games such as throwing bean bags at a target or ‘tag’ running games. For a game to feel satisfying it needs some sort of challenge – a goal or objective. More complex games could have players constantly re-evaluating the best choice for any given situation or basing activities on popular video games such as the Marvel universe of superheroes.

A great example is our exciting new PE Escape Room coaching day. During the event, children will need to solve mental and physical puzzles to be freed.

Adding tech to PE and physical activity

Tech aimed at exciting pupils and encouraging them to be active is another way to introduce gamification to your lessons. 

Wearables, smart technologies etc can provide new opportunities to keep children engaged. Our new OAA activities and Wellbeing Walks incorporate dynamic QR codes. When scanned, these codes will unlock an additional piece of information, a task or an activity for children to complete.

Gamification can be an exciting way to reimagine physical education in a post-pandemic world and could help support and encourage more young people to lead healthy and active lifestyles.

Get in touch to find out more about how our programmes can help engage even the most reluctant of pupils in PE and physical activity. 

More information

Research: Exploring the benefits of using gamification and videogames for physical exercise

TES article: Can video games help to boost PE engagement?

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Why should PE be a core subject?

Children enjoying PE lesson at school

Think back to 2012; what comes to mind? The chances are it’s the London Olympics. The last time we had held the Games before this was in 1948. It really was something to celebrate – remember Super Saturday? It seemed that the whole country had gone sport crazy.

Conversely, 2012 is also the year that funding for school PE was slashed. Worried about the future of PE and the pressures teachers were facing, we set up a social enterprise to work with schools to help inspire children and to build healthy active futures. 

It was a really tricky time, but we survived. In fact, our service grew and we now work with schools across England, helping to engage thousands of pupils in sport and physical activity every year.

Fast forward ten years; we’re celebrating our 10th birthday; the House of Lords has recommended that PE becomes a core subject in its National Plan for Sport and Recreation and former children’s minister, Edward Timpson has led a Westminster Hall debate on the subject. 

How times have changed!

Physical education is just as important as any other school subject

We firmly believe that PE should have the same status in schools as English, Maths and Science. Why? 

High-quality PE is more than ‘just playing games or running around’. It impacts on a child’s physical, moral, social, emotional, cultural and intellectual development. While it can be a stress-reliever and provide respite from classroom-based learning, it also provides pupils with meaningful learning experiences. 

PE squeezed from the curriculum

Department for Education guidance recommends that schools provide pupils with a minimum of two hours PE per week. However, as this is only a recommendation. It is up to schools to determine how much time should be spent teaching PE. This means we often see PE being squeezed from the curriculum. Pressures on schools to hit academic targets means that PE can be marginalised for additional Maths and English support and PE space is often compromised and made inaccessible for school plays, exams etc. 

The many benefits of high-quality PE

Elevating PE to core subject status would increase appreciation of the subject, ensuring it is valued as much as reading, writing and maths. Another benefit from regular high-quality PE lessons is that it helps children to develop an interest in being active, which is essential for ensuring long-term active lifestyles, which in turn will reduce the burden on the NHS.

Alongside these, there is evidence that regular physical activity raises academic performance as following a bout of physical activity you are more alert and open to learning new things, problem solving and retaining information. 

Looking to the future

We are delighted to be celebrating our 10th birthday and are so thankful to all the schools we have worked with over the past decade for putting their trust in us. While no one can predict the future, we are hopeful that the importance of PE and the need to help children to build healthy active futures will continue to grow. 

One thing we can say for certain is that we will remain committed to creating and delivering innovative educational programmes that improve wellness and inspire children to be more active more often.

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Six Dimensions of Wellness – pt 4 Occupational Wellness

Teacher health and wellbeing

Welcome to our fourth blog exploring the Six Dimensions of Wellness. Each of the six areas, or ‘dimensions’, contribute to our overall wellness – physical, social, intellectual, spiritual, emotional and occupational. These areas complement each other to provide a well-balanced, vital and prosperous life.

New year, new start?

The start of the year can often be a time when we re-evaluate our lives. Many people take it as an opportunity for a fresh start or to make a change in their work-life – a new job, career or industry.

While our jobs no longer dictate our names (Blacksmith, Potter, Mason, Tailor and so on), they are still often a major part of our identity. Often one of the first questions we ask when we meet someone new is, “What do you do?”.

A person’s profession or job can be a defining detail of who they are, providing clues as to their values, interests or background. So, having a job or career that is personally meaningful, and that brings us happiness or satisfaction, is important.

What is ‘occupational wellness’?

The Six Dimensions of Wellness are a guide to help us achieve balance in all areas of our lives. The occupational dimension recognises the personal satisfaction and enrichment that we achieve through our work. Our attitude to our job or career has a crucial impact on our lives, occupational wellness is being able to achieve a balance between work and leisure time, addressing workplace stress and building successful relationships with our colleagues.

According to Dr Hettler, who devised the Six Dimensions of Wellness, it is better to choose a career which is consistent with your own personal values, interests and beliefs. To find this, we need to explore various career opportunities until we discover one that fits.

As our job or profession encompasses so much of our time, it is essential that it brings us joy and fulfilment. When we are doing something that we love, it deepens our sense of meaning and purpose.

Your choice of profession, job satisfaction, career ambitions and personal performance are all important components of occupational wellness. As is using your skills and talents in a role that is both personally meaningful and rewarding.

Getting involved, taking part, learning something new and developing new skills is far better than remaining inactive or uninvolved.

How to know when you have achieved occupational wellness

  • Do you enjoy going to work most days?
  • Do you have a manageable workload?
  • Do you feel that you can talk to your manager and colleagues when problems arise?
  • Does what you do make you feel satisfied?

If you answered ‘No’ to any of these questions, it may mean you need to look at that area of your occupational wellness to see what could be enhanced or improved.

How can you develop your occupational wellness?

  • Explore different career options, especially those that involve taking opportunities you enjoy and that suit you best.
  • Look for, and take advantage of, the chance to learn something new along with opportunities to develop new skills.
  • Use your skills and talents in a way that is personally meaningful and rewarding.
  • Explore both work and volunteer opportunities in areas you are interested in to enhance your personal satisfaction.
  • Develop positive relationships with colleagues. We can’t all get along all of the time, so it is also important to learn how to practise open communication and effective conflict management.
  • Aim to find a satisfying balance between the financial fulfilment and the personal accomplishment and happiness from the work that you choose to do.

Further reading:

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The six dimensions of wellness pt 3 – Social Wellness

Community people working together

Welcome to our third blog in our series exploring the six dimensions of wellness. Being ‘healthy’ isn’t just being illness or disease-free; good health encompasses our physical, mental and social wellbeing. Practising positive habits every day will help us to achieve optimum health and wellness.

What is social wellness?

The social dimension of wellness is how we connect with others and the part we play in our local community – the relationships we have and how we interact with others. Positive and satisfying relationships are fundamental to our physical and emotional health.

We are living through a time where non-face-to-face interactions have grown substantially. We spend more time interacting with people digitally and as a consequence, we are becoming more isolated. Social connections and interactions affect our brain health and numerous studies have shown the better our relationships, the longer and happier our lives are.

Feeling part of something bigger than we are is also important to our social wellness. Being ‘socially well’ means playing an active part in the world around you, actively making this world a better place by caring for the environment, enabling important relationships and friendships to flourish.

It also means believing that contributing to the common good – our community – is better than thinking only of ourselves, and that it is better to live in harmony with others and nature.

Social wellness involves developing positive interpersonal skills, growing a strong support network and playing an active role in your community.

What can you do to develop your ‘social wellness’?

  • Talk to friends and family regularly – make an effort to keep in touch and check in on those in your support network. Be there when they need you and they will be there for you when you need them.
  • Get involved in school, work or other community activities – being part of a community unites us, it makes us feel as though we are part of something greater than ourselves. It gives us an opportunity to connect with people, to work towards a goal and it makes us feel safe and secure.
  • Learn about the social issues in your community – understand the challenges your community faces and ask yourself what you can do to help.
  • Deal with conflict respectfully – as we have discussed in previous blogs, conflict isn’t always a bad thing; the world would be a less exciting or interesting place if we all agreed all the time. However, how we respond to conflict is the crucial point. Nurturing your communication skills, practising active listening and looking at our body language can all help to manage conflict positively.

Further information:

Find out more about the six dimensions of wellness at the National Wellness Institute

Read our previous blogs on the subject: Pt 1 – Physical Wellness and Pt 2 – Emotional Wellness

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Six Dimensions of Wellness – pt 2: Emotional Wellness

children exercising

It is International Stress Awareness Week and therefore, a very relevant moment to return to the Six Dimensions of Wellness.

A number of studies over the past year (since lockdowns began) have noted that people are experiencing significantly more stress, anxiety and depression. Women and young people have been found to be the most affected.

Understanding wellness and the different elements of our lifestyle that contribute to it, will help you make healthy choices each day and support your pupils to do the same.

Six areas, or ‘dimensions’, make up overall wellness – physical, social, intellectual, spiritual, emotional and occupational – these complement each other to provide a well-balanced, vital and prosperous life.

What is ‘emotional wellness’?

In our first blog we looked at physical wellness – eating well, sleeping well and exercising regularly. In this blog, we will explore emotional wellness; the awareness of, and the acceptance of a wide range of feelings in yourself.

We all experience emotions. Successful emotional wellness is your ability to recognise, accept and manage your feelings. To do this, we need to reflect on how we feel, accept these feelings rather than deny them and know when to ask for help.

Being aware of and understanding your emotions and also respecting how other people feel is crucial to being ‘emotionally well’. This empathy and understanding will help you to develop relationships with other people that are based on a foundation of trust and respect. You will be able to take on challenges, take risks and recognise that conflict can be healthy.

Emotional wellness follows these two principles:

  • It is better to be aware of and accept our feelings than to deny them.
  • It is better to have a positive, rather than a pessimistic, approach to situations and challenges.

How can you support your pupils to develop emotional wellness?

Teach healthy ways to relieve stress.

  • Take a deep breath – stress often causes us to take short shallow breaths. Take a moment to slow down and breathe in through your nose and slowly exhale through your mouth as you count to 10.
  • Find a friend – a good way to beat loneliness, sadness or boredom (all of which make us stressed) is to be with someone else.
  • Talk about it – bottled up emotions cause stress. Sharing how you feel with someone else can help clear your mind. Make sure your pupils know who they can go to if they need to talk; either a teacher or teaching assistant, or maybe a nominated buddy in an older class.

Teach children that positive thoughts can make a difference.

Approaching a challenge or problem with a positive mindset means you think the best is going to happen, not the worst. What can we do to help develop a positive attitude?

  • Surround ourselves with positive people – negative people can increase our stress levels and make us doubt our ability. Make sure we have positive, supportive people who we can depend on for helpful feedback and advice in our lives.
  • Follow a healthy lifestyle – exercise positively affects our mood and reduces stress. Aim to exercise for about 60 minutes a day, this can be broken up into shorter chunks e.g. 6 lots of 10 minutes each day.
  • Practice positive self-talk – here are some examples of how to change the language we use:
    • I’ve never done it before / This is the chance to learn something new
    • It’s too complicated / I’ll try looking at it a new way
    • This won’t work / I can give it a go and see if it will work
    • It’s too difficult / I will try
    • No one talks to me / I will talk to them
    • I’m not going to get better at this / I will try again

Include social and emotional learning in your teaching.

Social and emotional learning (SEL) aims to improve how pupils make decisions, interact with others and manage their emotions. SEL helps children to:

  • Identify and manage their feelings and behaviour and reach out for help where necessary
  • Build and manage healthy relationships
  • Have self-control
  • Resolve conflict
  • Be self-aware
  • Handle and overcome difficulties
  • Make good decisions
  • Build resilience, self-esteem and confidence
  • Think positively about themselves and how they perceive the world around them
  • Recognise and prevent poor mental health

Further information

Read our last blog on Physical Wellness

You can find out more about the Six Dimensions of Wellness from the National Wellness Institute

See the Education Endowment Fund for examples of social and emotional learning interventions

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Can co-creation encourage more children to be more active?

Co-creation can be seen as the latest buzzword in education but what does it mean and could it help engage more children in their PE, School Sport and Physical Activity? This is what we are seeking to find out through our new Go Well HEART project.

Co-creation is different from consultation, which is where you ask questions, your class or working group responds and you decide the final outcome. Co-creation is working in partnership – you discuss ideas and proposals with your class or working group (co creators) and agree what you want to achieve. You develop the idea together and you decide on the goals and actions together. Everyone contributes; value is created collectively and everyone involved benefits.

Whilst co-creation can involve more work and take more time, it can ultimately lead to greater engagement and ownership and ultimately create programmes or activities that are more fun and enjoyable. It changes the dynamics of a programme or activity, moving pupils from being passive recipients to becoming active participants. Pupils can also feel empowered and listened to.

These outcomes sound great, but where do you start?

To be successful in co-creation you need to be clear on the type of engagement and how the final decision will be made – a collective, a majority, or will it be down to you or a chosen pupil to make the final decisions? An example of the scale of involvement in the decision-making process could be:

  • I will ask and listen; your opinions are important, however I will make the final decision (Consultation).
  • I will discuss and build it with you, and you will have an equal say in the decisions. We will vote on the outcome.
  • We will discuss and build this together and we as a group will decide on how decisions are made..

What are the benefits of co-creation?

By introducing co-creation you are giving children the chance to start articulating thoughts, wants and needs, whilst also building empathy and understanding through collective decision making.

Co-creation encourages pupils to think outside of the box and apply what they have learned through other experiences. It helps them to understand goals and what they need to do to work towards these. It can also present solutions that we as adults may not have thought of.

How can co-creation help with PESSPA?

Developing an active lifestyle is vital for our mental and emotional health as well as our physical wellbeing, but for some children PESSPA can be a miserable experience, a time when they feel embarrassed and uncomfortable. Co-creation could be one way to address this. Giving children choice and involving them in project design and the decision-making process could lead to greater engagement and enjoyment.

It also reduces the level of ‘risk’ when introducing a new programme or activity. “If you build it, they will come?” If you build it with them, they are already there.

You can even co-create the co-creation process with the children! Discuss with your pupils how they would like to be involved and engaged. Some pupils may not want to be part of the process initially or may shy away from group discussion. Give more hesitant or reluctant pupils the chance to give their thoughts in an alternative way or let them observe discussion-based activities; they will see how it works and it may well encourage them to be involved in future sessions.  

Tools to use as part of the co-creation process:

  • Surveys
  • Focus groups
  • Activities that help children to formulate a contribution (Diamond 9)
  • Reflections (experiment and learn)
  • Debates
  • Generating data and discussing it

Our top tips for successful co-creation:

  • Start small – pick one part of PESSPA to co-create e.g. after school provision.  See what works well with your children and spread this to other areas of PESSPA.
  • Test and learn – part of the co-creation process is to do, review and evaluate. In a rapidly changing world we need to help children not to fear failure,but to be prepared to try, learn and adapt or improve.
  • Be mindful – ‘they don’t know what they don’t know’. How can you help your pupils find out more to make informed decisions and contributions? How could you spark their imagination? Try using stories, videos or taster sessions/experiences. Remember that you don’t know what you don’t know either!

What to avoid:

  • Tokenism – asking children for the sake of asking, to look good, to look on trend and not using the data effectively or ignoring it if it doesn’t fit your narrative or plan
  • Entering co-creation with the outcome pre-formed in your mind
  • Not being clear on how decisions will be made
  • Making promises you can’t keep

How we are using co-creation at Go Well

We want to ensure that our programmes build on the activities that children enjoy.  We believe introducing co-creation into our programmes will help ensure that being active is a positive experience for more young people. Earlier this term we launched the second phase of our HEART project. Over 2,000 children are helping us to test a series of activities over a 12-week period.

The ’mini-researchers’ are spending six weeks working through exercises set by our team and noting their thoughts and feelings about the activities. They then submit their own suggestions for the second half of the programme. These can be variations of existing activities or brand-new exercises.  The second 6-week booklet of activities includes the children’s own games. This feedback and their contributions will help us to develop our understanding of the activities that they enjoy and stick with, and how these can be built into our physical activity programmes.  We are also testing a co-creation approach and will reflect and learn ourselves on this process.

Further information on co-creation

James Hutton Institute – Is co-creation more than participation?


Integration and Implementation Insights – 8 strategies for co-creation

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Six Dimensions of Wellness – pt 1 Physical Wellness

children yoga

We believe passionately in the power of physical activity to improve lives. Over this term we will be looking at how we can develop healthy minds and bodies through the six dimensions of wellness.

Firstly, what is wellness and why is it important?
Wellbeing? Physical health? Happiness? What does ‘wellness’ mean?
Often misunderstood and confused with similar terms, wellness is actually an active process that incorporates physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing. It is the state of being healthy in body and mind by practicing healthy habits on a daily basis.

What are the six dimensions of wellness?

Six areas of our lifestyle make up overall wellness – physical, social, intellectual, spiritual, emotional and occupational. These complement each other to provide a well-balanced, vital and prosperous life. By making simple healthy choices each day, we will move further towards achieving wellness.

We want to help you develop your own wellness and that of your pupils. In this first blog in the series, we’re exploring physical wellness.

Physical wellness

Physical wellness is an important contributor to our overall wellness. This means eating well, sleeping well and exercising regularly. Feeling physically good also enhances self-esteem, aids self-control and provides a sense of direction.

How can you support your own physical wellness and that of your pupils?
At Go Well, we want to impact on the wellness of 1 million people by 2025. One of the ways we are doing this is by introducing children to a broad range of healthy activities. Encouraging children to develop healthy habits whilst they are young will improve the quality of their life as they grow.

Here are three ways that will help you to achieve optimal physical wellness:

Eating healthily – a healthy diet where you eat a range of healthy foods, particularly fruit and vegetables, is beneficial for short and long-term health. It will also help keep you full and satisfied throughout the day. Change for Life has some great tips on nutrition and what a healthy diet looks like, as well as meal ideas and food swaps. You can also download a free food scanner app which makes it easier to find out what is really in the food and drink that you’re buying.

Exercising regularly and consistently – being active every day helps to strengthen your body and mind. Children aged 5 – 18 should aim for at least 60 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity a day (this means you should be breathing faster and feeling warmer). Children should take part in a range of activities across the week to develop movement skills, muscles and bones. Spreading active periods out across the day will also help to reduce the length of time spent sitting or lying down and break up long periods of not moving. You can get more information about activity guidelines different kinds of activities on the NHS website

Getting adequate rest – sleep is critical to good health and helps us to feel better physically and mentally. Not enough sleep can lead to difficulties in concentrating and a higher likelihood of getting ill. Children aged 6 – 12 years need 9 to 12 hours sleep every night. Quality sleep is essential for children’s growth and development, it will help them to do better at school, they will be able to react more quickly to situations, learn more effectively and solve problems more easily. The Sleep Charity has resources to help support children to get a good night’s sleep.

Find out more

You can find out more about the Six Dimensions of Wellness from the National Wellness Institute

Read our introductory blog

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6 ways to inspire more girls to play sport

girls in sports hall with ball

We have been wowed by some amazing young athletes recently – Sky Brown, Emma Raducanu, Maisie Summers Newton – but they sadly can be seen as the exception. Just 15% of girls meet WHO recommendations of at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity per day. Amongst 5 – 7 year olds, only 23% achieve this target.

The Department for Education is investing £1.2m to improve school sport for girls but we can all do more to encouraging young girls to develop an active lifestyle. As a PE lead you can play a pivotal role in inspiring girls to take part in sport. Here are six ways you can help:

Talk about females in sport

We all need someone to look up to. Just 30% of girls dream of reaching the top of sport compared with 60% of boys. Highlight women role models, these can be on the national and international stage or heroes closer to home – celebrate the successes and stories of active women and girls in your school and community. For example, if you are chatting about the weekend’s football results with your class, remember to talk about the results from the Women’s Super League.

Create safe spaces for girls to play sport at your school

Levelling up starts on the playing field. Look at how your pupils use your active spaces. Are the boys dominating the MUGA? Many girls feel uncomfortable about taking part in sports and activities under the gaze of boys. Can you create opportunities for girls-only activities, a space that they can use for their games or a fair share of the MUGA?

For every boys team, have a girls team

Football, cricket, rugby. It can be argued that mixed teams provide an opportunity for girls too, however, only the most confident and competent of girls are likely to take part with the boys. A girls’ only team will provide a safer space for girls to experiment with participating in sporting activities.

Challenge negative stereotypes

‘Throw like a girl’ ‘Run like a girl’ ‘This is a boys sport’ Make sure you, and all other staff within your school, address every negative stereotype heard. Constant reminding and reinforcing the message will help build confidence and belief amongst girls.

Encourage your female staff to become role models

Supporting girls to be active isn’t solely down to you. As we said at the beginning, we all play a part in creating a culture where activity is seen as integral to school life. This will help girls want to become more active. Make sure your female staff talk about and share stories of the sports and activities that they do. The more girls see other females playing sports or being active, the more it is normalised and seen as something that ‘we all do’.

Ask girls what sports and activities they are interested in

When pupils feel they have been involved in a decision and their opinions have been heard, their motivation increases. Research shows that girls response more positively to PE and school sport if they feel they have been part of the consultation process.

For more ideas and examples on how to create better experiences for girls in sport take a look at
Women in Sport’s Changing the Game for Girls Teacher Toolkit
Nike’s Made to Play Guide
Girls Football in School from Youth Sport Trust and the FA

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How can I look after my own wellbeing?

Woman with arms outstretched in woods

Planning lessons, delivering them effectively, differentiating learning, supporting children to succeed…teachers are on the frontline and never more so than over the past 16 months. Many will be feeling drained from this exceptionally testing academic year.

To be ‘fit’ to cope with the constant demands and pressures, to provide the quality teaching and learning experiences that you wish to, and to be the great teacher you aspire to be, it is essential that you take steps to consider and look after your own wellbeing.

Here are five simple ways to improve your wellbeing and make sure you are fit for your lessons:

  1. Stay hydrated; drink plenty of water. It sounds really simple but not only is it a healthy habit, drinking water can help to alleviate the effects of cortisol (the stress hormone). The NHS suggest you drink 6-8 glasses each day. Consider increasing your intake on warm summer days!
  2. Prioritise good quality sleep. A good night’s sleep gives your brain time to repair, restore and re-energise. A calming routine before bed would help with this – reducing the effects of blue light by switching off all technology an hour before bedtime (try reading a book instead) and keeping your mobile phone out of your bedroom!
  3. Exercise. Being active helps to release helpful chemicals in your brain that boost your mood and improve attention and concentration. Aim to have small active bursts in your day to keep your brain topped up. Also, create an exercise schedule for yourself for longer exercise sessions (walk, run, the gym, sporting activities – whatever you prefer) and prioritse that time for you!
  4. Get outside. Spending time in nature has been proven to benefit both mental and physical wellbeing – reducing blood pressure, lowering heart rate, reducing muscle tension and minimising the production of stress hormones. To maximise the benefits, really take in your surroundings – take note of three things in the environment around you that make you feel good.
  5. Write it down. Building a habit of journaling (writing down your thoughts each evening) can help clarify your thoughts and feelings, and solve problems. It can improve sleep and increase productivity. It can also help you meet your goals and improve your quality of life while reducing stress and symptoms of depression. Get a notepad and get writing!

If you find some of your new habits have a positive impact on your wellbeing, consider sharing them with your pupils or even doing them together. Being a good role model will help to inspire your pupils to be healthy and active and prioritise self-care.

Team Up is our innovative wellbeing programme. We have packages for children and for staff.

Remembering your ‘why’ – reconnecting with you and looking to the future – our blog by Hannah Bell to support school staff who might be struggling with the pressures of the pandemic.

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12 ideas for a memorable sports day this year!

Children holding sports day medals

Sports days can bring about so many different positive outcomes for children and the wider school community.  As well as being a celebration of sporting achievements and talent within a school, these events are a brilliant opportunity for children to connect, socialise, have fun together and celebrate the benefits of being active.

The day can give pupils who may struggle in other areas of school life the chance to show off their talents, or inspire a child to be more active by having a positive experience of personal challenge. Children can also develop and show leadership, teamwork and communication skills. 

As there are so many potential outcomes, a first step would be to decide on the objectives for your sports day, then design your event to deliver those outcomes.  For example, if you want to deliver a celebration of physical activity and personal achievement, what events could you include? How would you include personal challenge?  How would you celebrate individual success?  If your outcome is to unite your school community, how would you involve different people and groups from your community?  How could they interact within the current restrictions?

Here are 12 ideas that you could use depending on the aims and objective of your sports day:

  1. Involve children in planning the day.  Can they choose the theme? I’m sure they will have some great ideas about what they would like to do, how they can include everyone and what activities to include.
  2. Split classes into teams or houses and give them the goal of collecting points for their team.
  3. In the build-up to the day, have each team create a song, dance or cheer that they perform during the days before sports day and on the day itself.
  4. Have team captains, perhaps in each class, record video good luck messages that can be shown in other classes before the day.
  5. Link the activities to the 5 ways to well-being – Twinkl has some free resources that you could use
  6. Take inspiration from the forthcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games and link your activities to the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics and their values. Take a look at Get Set, the British Olympic Association and British Paralympic Association youth engagement programme, for ideas
  7. Have one class/bubble spectate whilst another class takes part in the activities, they can provide encouragement from the sidelines, perhaps singing their team’s song.
  8. Involve parents by setting a challenge such as number of steps for that day or week. These achievements can contribute to house/team scores.  Or ask parents to send in recorded video messages of support to use at the start or in the build-up to the day.  Make sure you make parents aware of your theme/intended outcome so their messages can fit with this.
  9. Hold a virtual opening ceremony – you could ask a sportsperson to record an opening message and share this across all classes.
  10. Why stop at a day? Make it a ‘sports week’ or build-up to the day over a period of weeks.  Give children the opportunity to practice the activities that will be taking place.  Active lessons and linking the curriculum to the theme for the week will provide more opportunities for children to shine.
  11. Set a challenge for teachers too.  This could be something they complete before the event or a challenge for the day itself.
  12. Celebrate successes in different ways – winner of the event?  Achieving a personal best? Best leader?  Biggest smile? WOW moment? Best team chant? etc.  Have a positive scoring system and ensure all your helpers practice positive coaching.

We hope you find these ideas helpful and wish you the best of luck with your sports day. These events can live long in the minds of children, incorporating some of these ideas will help to ensure this is a positive memory for as many pupils as possible.

Here are some additional resources that may also help:

Youth Sport Trust – Youth Voice Toolkit

England Athletics’ Funetics Sports Day programme

School Games Positive Experiences of Competition Toolkit

Youth Sport Trust National School Sport Week – don’t forget to enter the prize draw when you register!

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Go Well Blog

6 Top Tips on helping children return to exercise after a long break

Coinciding with winter, the recent lockdown is likely to have had a significant impact on your pupils’ activity and fitness levels. Children have missed out on school PE lessons, after-school activities, active travel, organised sport and outdoor play. On-line lessons have also increased screen use and sedentary behaviour.
Young people should undertake 60 minutes of moderate intensity activity over the course of a day. In this blog we explore how you can support your class as they return to school and help them to develop an active and healthy lifestyle.
  1. Start where children are now, not where they were. Be compassionate and build things up steadily. Many of your pupils may not be able to do some activities or movements which they found easy before Christmas. Introducing a programme of daily activities will help to increase stamina, flexibility and strength gradually. Regular routines also have a positive impact on a child’s social and emotional development, which is particularly important at this time.
  2. Build your pupils’ confidence and competence to move. Focus on good technique and differentiate to easier movements if required. To help children get moving again, activities need to be easy to understand and fun – keep things simple. Think about how you can extend an activity or movement to help those who are ready for development whilst enabling everyone in the class to feel a sense of achievement.
  3. Focus on effort and reaching moderate to vigorous intensity levels – the number of individual movements completed is irrelevant. Aim for a moderate level of activity initially and build to vigorous over time. Use the Rate of Perceived exertion chart to see where children are now and aim to get them to work at a higher intensity each week.
  4. Let them choose. With lockdown restrictions, many children feel a sense of powerlessness. Letting your class choose which activity or game to use is a great way for them to feel involved and listened to and in turn, this will help to build up their confidence. You can encourage the class to choose an activity that everyone takes part in, or pair pupils up and ask each pair to choose which activity they are going to do. Giving students a voice will also develop ownership of the activity and lead to greater participation and commitment.
  5. Avoid comparison with others, especially in the early days. Individual workouts can be a great way to start your physical activity programme and ensure it is a personal challenge. When working together, think about grouping pupils by ability or fitness levels to avoid children feeling self-conscious. Create a culture where everyone’s achievements are celebrated by focusing on progress made. This will help bring your class closer together and develop respect for each other.
  6. The best approach to encouraging children to be more active is little and often. Increasing the amount of time spent being physically active across all subjects will help to increase how often children are active during the day, it will also improve educational outcomes and emotional development.

Our Fit for Life programme can help you achieve all this, and more. Fit for Life has been specially designed to help you deliver high quality fitness workouts for your pupils. The 10-minute blast sessions use high intensity activities to support muscle and bone strengthening and can be done anytime, anywhere.

Take advantage of our special offer and get more for you and your school – all schools signing up for a
three-year licence will receive a FREE set of activity equipment worth £349.95.
Further Reading 
 
https://cer.hmf.mybluehost.me/gowell/go-well-blog/6-ways-to-integrate-physical-activity-into-your-school-day/ 
 
https://cer.hmf.mybluehost.me/gowell/go-well-blog/why-moderate-to-vigorous-intensity-exercise-is-important-for-children-and-how-to-measure-it/ 
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5 top tips for integrating physical activity into a home learning day

The Chief Medical Officers’ recommendation is that children should take part in an average of 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity each day. In normal circumstances a lot of this may be provided by opportunities within a normal school day, for example walking to and from school, playtimes, PE lessons and after school clubs. With children at home and parents supporting their learning, how can physical activity be integrated into the new ‘school day’?

Here are a few tips:

1. Start the day with some activity

Get the day off to a good start with some physical activity! Perhaps make it part of your morning routine. Being active releases lovely feel good chemicals that boost mood and can help to start your day in a positive mindset. Activities you could do include:

  • A workout – you could try our FFL Workout of the Week
  • A dance – to your favourite music or using a resource like Just Dance
  • A ‘follow me’ style video like Joe Wicks or Jumpstart Jonny

Our advice is to keep things varied and vibrant so perhaps do a different activity each morning. Why not join in with your children and boost your brain chemicals too?

2. Plan an outside physical activity into your day

Getting outside in the sunlight is so important for general well-being. Outdoor play would be normal at lunchtime within the school day. Perhaps plan an activity in to the middle of the day to break the day up a bit, have a change of scene and recharge your batteries. Activities you could do include:

  • Going out for a walk
  • Going for a jog/run
  • Going on a bike ride/scooter Ride

3. Have short brain breaks throughout the day

Being active releases chemicals in the brain that increase concentration and alertness! So whenever you feel a dip in your child’s motivation or concentration or they are finding a task particularly difficult, try a quick active brain break. Then return to the work and notice the difference! Visit Active 30 Durham Hub for some ideas for brain breaks.

4. Record and reward time spent being active

It can be motivating to record activity, see progress being made and be rewarded along the way. Perhaps create a reward chart where children can colour in the number of minutes they are active within the day. You can create goals and targets depending on your child’s starting point when it comes to activity. Some examples could be:

Completing 60 minutes on X number of days in the week.
Completing X number of minutes on a certain day or number of days
Completing 60 minutes for a streak of X days

What rewards can you give your children for completing their goal? Perhaps your child can think of some too!

To be effective for health benefits and to truly meet the CMO guidelines the activity levels should be moderate to vigorous. Our blog about what this is and how to measure it may be helpful.

5. Integrate movement with learning

If you can integrate movement with learning then you can kill two birds with one stone! We are slightly biased but we would argue that this can be more fun and engaging for some children. Active learning is something that is now very common in schools. Some ideas you could try:

  • Relay style games to collect answers or objects to then sort.
  • Treasure Hunts with questions or puzzles as clues or number/shape hunts in the house or outside.
  • Using your body to give answers e.g. squat for true, lunge for false, create letters or shapes with your body.
  • Target games with answers to hit or knock off or throwing a specific number to a target.

 

We hope you find these top tips helpful.  We know juggling everything is challenging right now and we feel physical activity can be especially helpful to relieve stress, improve concentration and improve mood.  It can be incorporated little and often into your day or in bigger chunks; whatever suits you best. I n Lockdown 1 children’s physical activity levels dropped significantly and we would like to support parents and schools to keep children moving in Lockdown 3.  We have created some free to access resources that may be helpful:

Physical activity and wellness activties.

A Weekly challenge fusing physical activity and creativity.

Workout of the Week

Mental Wellbeing Activities

 

You can access them here – Lockdown 3 Resources

Further reading/resources that may be helpful:

Why moderate to vigorous intensity exercise is important for children and how to measure it.

5 ideas for schools to support children to be active at home

The difference between physical activity and Physical Education and balancing them both in Lockdown 3.

Active 30 Durham Hub

Youth Sport Trust Coronavirus Support

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Go Well Blog

The difference between physical activity and Physical Education and balancing them both in Lockdown 3.

When children are at school they take part in both Physical Education (recommended 2 hours per week) AND physical activity (recommended 30 minutes a day in school).  

There are distinct differences between the two:

Physical Activity is  ‘…all bodily movement that uses energy’ (AfPE)

Physical Education…’ takes place in a school curriculum…and involves learning to move and moving to learn’ (AfPE)

Benefits of each

 Both types of movement provide many benefits for young people:

Benefits of Physical Activity

Benefits of Physical Education

1. Improve physical health and fitness

 

2. Improve mental health and well being

 

3. Improve cognitive function

 

4. Reduce the risk of some diseases

 

5. Social interaction with friends and family members

 

6. Ease of access – scope for all to be involved as there will be no financial cost, equipment not always necessary.

 

 

 

 

1. Points 1-5 of Physical Activity benefits

 

2. Improved physical literacy

 

3. The knowledge and understanding of how to lead a healthy lifestyle

 

4. Developing wider skills – eg: leadership, communication skills, resilience,  teamwork, confidence and social skills

 

5. Acquiring the technique to perform individual transferable physical skills; being given the chance to develop them and put them into practise in a variety of environments

 

6.Evaluating skills; recognising what is good and what requires improvement and how to go about this

 

7. Breadth of opportunity – being able to unlock possible potential through a rich menu of high quality experiences

 

8. Personal targets and challenges and how to set these, to help individuals to achieve and make progress

 

 

Examples of Physical Activities

Examples of Physical Education Activities

Going for a walk, jog or run

Going on a bike ride

Doing the housework

Doing some DIY

Gardening

Taking part in a fitness class

Recreational sport

A wide variety of sports and activities – Games, Swimming, Gymnastics, Dance, Outdoor Education

Adapted games and activities that have a key objective

Learning rules and regulations

Being a sports leader

Refereeing, umpiring and officiating

Potential to gain qualifications not only in PE but also in leadership and officiating

 

 

There is some clear overlap between the two.

When children take part in Physical Education they are likely to also be physically active.  However, when children take part in physical activity, there may not be strong elements of learning taking place, that would equate to that within a Physical Education session.  Learning is the key element of Physical Education.

Many children and parents are currently grappling with the demands of ‘home learning’.  Providing physical activity and Physical Education opportunities within this can be helpful not just for physical health and physical literacy but also for looking after mental health and creating a readiness to complete academic work set.

Our suggestion while learning at home, is to find the balance that suits you best, but to try to include both Physical Education and physical activity opportunities.  A good aim would be to meet the Chief Medical Officers guidelines of 60 minutes of activity a day and split that between physical activity and Physical Education.  You could do this in a variety of ways, for example:

  • 20 mins Physical education per day, 40 mins physical activity per day

  • 2 days Physical Education focus, 3 days physical activity focus

There are a range of resources available to support parents to encourage their children to be active at home.  A good selection of these can be found on the Active 30 Durham Hub (open to all – link below).

Top tips for delivering Physical Education based activities at home

  1. Use a Physical Education based resource

  2. Give demonstrations to your child (or ask other siblings to) to show good technique

  3. Ask your children questions during the activity such as “How does it feel? How can you improve your technique? When would you use this?”

  4. Have lots of fun interacting with your child and watching them achieve and learn new things!

  5. Practise to improve and be proud of all achievements!

 Good luck!

This blog was a collaboration between multiple members of the Go Well team.  For more information email info@go-well.org.

Further links that may be helpful

AfPE Importance of Physical Education, School Sport and Physical Activity Resources

Active 30 Durham Hub

Other blogs that may be useful

5 ideas for schools to support physical activity at home

Why moderate to vigorous intensity exercise is important for children and how to measure it

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Go Well Blog

Making the most of Fitness in Education – How to design Fitness sessions to incorporate Personal Development.

We have seen a significant boom in the inclusion of fitness based sessions in Primary Schools following the popularity of ‘PE’ with Joe in lockdown and the concerns over decreasing fitness levels of children that became evident.

I say PE in inverted commas as I think it is fair to say that, on behalf of PE practitioners in my team that Joe Wicks MBE provided a fitness session as opposed to a physical education lesson.  

Children following the instructor on the screen like for like, for me, has its limitations.  Yes, children are moving but:

  • How do we ensure children are performing the correct technique?
  • How do the children know if they are working at the right intensity levels?
  • How do we keep them engaged and interested in the long term?
  • What are they learning?

In an education setting, I feel like we can achieve so much more.  We are missing a trick in what more a fitness session can bring to our children.

How to design Fitness sessions to incorporate Personal Development

I want to write today about how we can make the best use of a fitness session, in an education setting, whether that be within a PE lesson or as part of Active 30 provision, to bring about personal development.  

We know schools have very little time in their day to fit in everything they have to and want to do.  With a well-planned and prepared fitness programme we can make a significant impact not only on physical health, mental health but on character building too – all at the same time.

Intent is a word used a lot now in education; if our intent is to incorporate character building to our session then how we design the session is key.  

Here are a few tips on what you can do to develop the following skills/values through fitness sessions:

Resilience/Determination

Fitness itself should be a tough exercise to take part in.  The aim is to get out of breath and sweaty, to be in the moderate to vigorous intensity zone and stay there.  Children can find this difficult (as can adults!).  Quite often we see children giving up when it gets a little tough.  So how we can encourage them to keep going?  We encourage two key things in this area:

Reward effort

For us, one of the key aims of a fitness session is to be working in the right intensity zone.  Whether that takes me 100 reps or 10 it really doesn’t matter.  Reward effort, reward the children working at the right intensity levels and doing their best.  You can access our Rate of Perceived Exertion to help with this.

Set personal goals

We do not advocate making all workouts competitive at a primary age, but seeing progress can motivate a young person to keep going and be determined.  Perhaps pick a few workouts or challenges to use as a measure of fitness, complete them in Week 1 and repeat them in Week 6 with the aim of achieving their personal best.

Teamwork/Communication

We can design workouts where teamwork and communication are required to be successful.  See below a work together workout from our Fit for Life programme.  Here the children have to work in a pair to complete the workout; they will have to communicate with each other and work together to complete it.  A personal favourite is adding ‘synced’ movements, where all team members have to complete a movement at the same time, such as a burpee.  To do this successfully they have to talk to each other, perhaps even communicate non verbal when they are out of breath to stay in sync!

Problem Solving/Strategising

We can design team workouts where children have to work together to create a strategy of how best to complete the workout.  Let the children discuss and decide how to split up the reps, give them an aim as this may change their strategy e.g. the aim is for everyone to be working at moderate to vigorous intensity, the aim is to complete the challenge in the fastest time, the aim is to get as many reps as possible, the aim is to perform the movements with the highest quality.  

In an individual workout we can provide a rep scheme that involves some decision making and strategy forming.  E.g.

Complete in any order:

  • 50 squats
  • 50 press ups
  • 50 lunges
  • 50 torso twists

Do you work through doing 50, 50, 50, 50?  Or do you 10 of each until it’s complete? 5 of each? Pair the movements? Easiest first? There are so many options to assess and decisions to make!  It will make for a fascinating discussion back in the classroom.

Also, you can allow multiple attempts at the same workout to allow different strategies to be tested.

Empathy/Compassion

There should be no one in the class finding the fitness session easy.  If they are, you aren’t challenging them enough or they aren’t challenging themselves enough.  We are all going to find ourselves struggling at some point in a fitness session, whether we can’t crack a move or we are totally out of breath and don’t think we can do another rep.  If we find ourselves in this position in an individual workout we will need some encouragement from our peers.  If we find ourselves in this position in a group workout we will need the support of our peers and they’ll know how we’re feeling at some point!  But it can stretch a little wider than that, we now all know how it can feel to struggle at something and we can empathise with others when they struggle too, in any area of life.

For all of the above, they won’t just happen with good design.  Fitness doesn’t teach personal development – we do.  

Fitness is one of the mediums/activities that we can use to do it.  How we design our sessions, what questions we ask, what discussions we prompt before, during and after a session helps children to learn and develop these key life skills/values.

If you haven’t got time to plan and prepare a fitness programme like this for your class or school but are interested in the concept, do get in touch – we can help.

For more information contact: sarahprice@go-well.org

Further information:

Blog – Why moderate to vigorous intensity exercise is important to children and how to measure it.
www.fitforlifeschools.org.uk
 
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Go Well Blog

5 ideas for schools to support children to be active at home

We are currently in National Lockdown 2.0; engaging children in regular physical activity is becoming more and more challenging. Some reasons for this may include:

  • Space and time in school is limited with staggered lunchtimes and deteriorating weather

  • Community sport and recreation opportunities are cancelled

  • After school clubs are limited to bubbles

  • The dark nights are setting in

  • We are all spending the majority of our time at home

While schools continue to aim to provide 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity in school time, which in itself is tricky, the additional 30 minutes out of school is providing a significant challenge.

We know that schools want to help their parents and communities to support children to be active outside of school.  We know being physically active is super important for physical health and mental health and we know the pandemic is negatively affecting the health and well-being of our children.  So what can we do?  

Here are a few ideas…

1. Virtual After School Clubs

Why not?  We all have taken big steps into the digital world and live virtual delivery has been successful in many settings.  Joe Wicks got us started in Lockdown 1.0 but we have equally seen local sports club set up ‘zoom’ type sessions to continue engagement in their activities.  Schools are becoming more comfortable with home learning and digital platforms; this could really be an option to expand the current, potentially limited, after school club provision.

It could be school staff delivering or you could engage with an external provider.  The Youth Sport Trust have also just announced that they will be providing a livestream virtual after school club at 5pm each night.

‘After School Sport Club’ will run for five weeks until December 18 and children and young people can take part live by visiting the YST’s YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/user/YouthSportTrust.

2. A Challenge or Competition

We have found that themes or challenges/competitions are a great way of engaging people young and old in physical activity.  In our ‘One Million Steps to Wellness challenge’ I walked over twice as many steps as I would in an average week.  A half termly, weekly or daily challenge may just spark that engagement.  Here are some quick ideas:

  • A steps challenge similar to our ‘One Million Steps to Wellness’.  Give a step target to a child as an individual, create small teams, or travel collectively somewhere as a class or bubble!

  • Sport themed half-terms with a different activity each week e.g. Athletics, Football.  Each child could have a go at the activity on a Monday and create a score, with the aim being to beat that score on Friday.  Start it at school, practice it at home!

  • Contribute to a total – did you hear about the girl who accumulated over 1 million “keepy upy’s” over Lockdown 1.0?  You could copy that with your class/school/bubble or come up with your own idea of a skill to use.  Throw and catch off a wall, squats, minutes of dancing…anything you or the children can think of!

3. Promote Resources Available to Parents

Why re-invent the wheel?  There are numerous resources out there now that can support children to be active at home.  A simple newsletter or notification to parents of what is available may go a long way.  Although, perhaps using these as a theme or challenge would enhance engagement further.  Here are some useful links:

Youth Sport Trust Free Downloadable Resources: https://www.youthsporttrust.org/free-resources
Change for Life Activities for Children:  https://www.nhs.uk/change4life/activities
Active 30 Durham Home Resource Catalogue: https://www.countydurhamsport.com/young-people/active-30/home/

4. Promote Active Travel

A 15 minute brisk walk/run/scoot/bike ride to school and 15 minute brisk walk/run/scoot/bike ride home would clock up a child’s 30 minutes of activity needed outside of school time.  Can you incentivise or reward Active Travel to school?

5. Activity Tracking

Setting goals and activity tracking can support children (and adults) to maintain engagement in physical activity.  A useful aim is to reach the CMO guidelines of 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity each day.  Individual goals would be preferred, if time allows, as children will all begin from a different starting point.

3 Top Tips:

Involve the children in the planning/delivery/promotion

We know teachers are really stretched at the moment.  This could be a project for a group of sports leaders.

Keep it varied and vibrant

To maintain the engagement, keep mixing it up!  Use multiple ideas above in a longer plan/programme.

Reward engagement

Celebrate success of children being active outside of school to maintain the motivation of those engaged but also to encourage those less engaged to join in

 

We hope you found this blog helpful, if you have then you may find these previous blogs useful too:

6 ways to integrate Physical Activity

Why moderate to vigorous activity is important for children and how to measure it

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Go Well Blog

10 ways to make your virtual meetings more active!

Are you sitting in lots of virtual meetings throughout the day?  We would like to help you to make virtual meetings more active!

We advocate that everyone should integrate physical activity into their daily schedule to benefit their physical and mental health.  

However, did you know that it also boosts your brain power?  

Physical activity boosts the production of a chemical in your brain called BDNF which creates new brain cells and strengthens neural pathways.  It also boosts the production of Norepinephrine, which improves your concentration and alertness.

Hands up who can find it difficult to maintain full concentration during online learning or meetings?  

If you are leading online meetings, it may be helpful to integrate activity in to your delivery/time to maintain or to boost engagement.

Here are a few ideas for integrating activity into your online meetings:

1. Active Quiz/Poll

Link answers to body shapes or movements.  Stand up for Yes, Squat down for No.  Lean left for agree, lean right for disagree.

2. Active Break – Rock, Paper, Scissors!

An active twist on Rock, Paper, Scissors.  Use movements for Rock, Paper and Scissors.  Play in pairs, keep your score to see who wins.  You can also give other roles out like a referee and a score keeper. This works great in breakout rooms.  You can make it into a competition if you like or just play for fun!

Add some twists!:

1. Points for passion – have a judge who can give extra points for how passionate people are when playing.

2. Make it more active by replacing Rock, Paper and Scissors with other more challenging movements e.g Squat, Lunge, One foot balance.

3. Full screen with everyone creating a shape at the same time.  The shape with the most people performing that shape wins that round.

3. Active Break – I went to….

Split your delegates into breakout rooms of groups of 4-6.  The task is to create the longest sequence of movements in the style of the game ‘I went to the supermarket and I bought….’  e.g. Add a movement on each time you move to the next player.  Change the intro to anything you like ‘I went to PE and we did…..’, ‘I went to the gym and we did…..’.  You can work through the alphabet or just freestlyle!

4. Active Break – Dance

Create a dance – Split your delegates into breakout rooms of groups of 4-6.  Ask each room to create a dance to a certain section of a song (all the same song and section).  Bring the groups back together and perform the dance either one group at a time, or all together.

5. Active Break –  1-2-3 

Split your group into breakout rooms in pairs and complete the exercise in the video below.

6. Active Break – Competition

How many times can you catch and throw an object within a minute?  One hand to the other? One hand only?  Off your wall?  Compete against each other or repeat the task and try and beat your own score.

7. Active Break – Workout

Complete a 2, 5 or 10 minute workout together.  You can use this one if you like:

8. Active thinking time

Walk and reflect – set a thinking task but ask participants to go for a 10 minute walk, ideally outside, as they consider the question or questions.

9. Active task – Scavenger hunt

Collect objects from your house/office space that represent a certain thing or answer a question.

10. Active Break –  Mexican Wave!

Team challenge.  Can you create a Mexican wave on your screen in a certain order?

Add some twists:

1. Pick a person and an order (horizontal wave/vertical wave).  The wave has to go in that order on that persons screen but they cannot talk during the challenge and the others cannot ask them questions.  They can only make waves and attempt to create the wave in the right order.  The person can nod, shake their head or do a wave (they are in the screen after all and will need to take their turn in the Mexican wave).   Once an effort to make the wave fails the team needs to start again!

2.  Do a wave and then point (with one hand or two), whoever you point to has to do a wave and so on.

Some of these tasks can be linked to a topic/be part of the content of the meeting and some can just be to have some fun and move!  A quick 5 minute activity of simply moving, having fun and connecting with other people will help to boost brain chemicals in individuals and lift the atmosphere in virtual meetings.  The next ‘serious’ task is then likely to be more productive with delegates more alert and ready to engage.

These are just a few suggestions and as we have been implementing them in our meetings and workshops we have come up with new ideas, which I’m sure you will too!  We would love you to share any new ideas or twists on the above in the comments!

We hope you have found this blog helpful, for more information contact: sarahprice@go-well.org.

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Go Well Blog

7 Top Tips on Rebranding your Organisation

Brand words illustration

We recently embarked on a full rebrand of our company – change of name, logo, mission and vision.  It was no mean feat!  

 

We navigated the process independently and we believe, successfully.  Here are a few things that we learned from the process that may be helpful for anyone considering rebranding:

No. 1 – Be sure!

Have a strong rationale and ensure the change links to the strategic aims of your company.  Changing your company identity is a transformational change that will affect everyone linked to your organisation – staff, customers, partners.  Consider the benefits of the change against the risks. You could use tools like a forcefield analysis to help – https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_06.htm.

 

Only go ahead when you are sure it is the right decision and the right time.

No. 2 – Have clear decision-making

Be clear from the beginning where decisions will be made.  Will it be the leader of the organisation?  Directors?  Management team?  Collective decision?  As we felt this was potentially a subjective decision, we were clear that the management team would make the final decision.  This was communicated clearly to the rest of the team from the outset.  Our team members knew that their input, their thoughts and their participation in the process were important and meaningful but they would not be responsible for the final decision.

No. 3 – Consult, research and learn.

Talk to people!  Involve as many people as possible actively in the process. Consult at the start, in the middle and just before the end. Hold workshops, launch surveys, have discussions.  Gather lots of data that you can use to inform decision-making by identifying themes.  Through our consultation we gained greater clarity on our USP and purpose.  Through researching other brands and processes we created parameters that we wanted our name to fit. 

This learning and identifying of themes in data were key in informing the final decision that we made – it made a subjective decision quite objective.

It is also worth noting here, that the final company name came from a member of team!

No. 4 – Don’t ask people what they like

It feels like the natural question to ask – do you like this?  What do you think about this?

In many ways it isn’t about what people like.  We all like different things, different shapes, different colours.  Your company brand isn’t looking to win a popularity contest, it is looking to reflect your organisation and what you do.  Your brand needs to connect people to your organisation, to it’s why, it’s purpose and it’s values.

 

Ask people questions like, what does this brand say about us?  See if the responses correlate to your values and purpose from your research/consultation.

No. 5 – Stay in the fog!

There will be times when you feel lost, when you feel it isn’t coming together, you aren’t going to make it, it isn’t going as well as planned, you can’t see the end.  That can be referred to as the fog of uncertainty.  Breathe it in, stay there, it is where the magic eventually happens.

 

In fact, we delayed our timelines at one point to stay in the fog a little longer!

No. 6 – Communicate – a lot!

As mentioned before, rebranding is a transformational change that affects everyone connected to your company.  Keeping people informed of the steps taken, completed, the next steps, the reasons behind certain decisions or elements will keep them on board, interested and even excited – depending on how you present it.  Be passionate when you communicate – it can be infectious.

 

The two videos posted below give an example of how we communicated our rebrand to our external stakeholders.

No. 7 – Have fun!

Any process is much better when you have fun with it, right? Rebranding is a creative process and it gives you a lot of opportunities to have some fun and spark some creative thinking.  You can do this with your team through the activities you plan for workshops you may hold.  You can do this with external partners/customers too. Here are a few fun activities we used:

 

Force fitting – present a random object/picture, write 10 words linked to that object/picture, create brand names linked to those words.

 

Object retrieval – find 3 objects around your house that link to your company’s why. Present them and explain them.

 

What would xxxx name our company? – Insert different well-known people into the question.

 

The purpose of some of these activities is to disrupt your thinking and bring about new perspectives, ideas or possibilities.  You will find more information about these activities and many more practical tools and techniques for creativity and innovation in the Idea Time book by Dr Jo North – https://bigbangpartnership.co.uk/idea-time-book-one/

We hope you find these 7 top tips helpful.   The launch video below illustrates the full journey taken.  If you are planning to undergo a rebrand process, good luck and enjoy the journey!

For more information on this blog contact: sarahprice@go-well.org

 

Chilton Academy, Chilton, Ferryhill, County Durham, DL17 0PT

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