Sharing Camden Practice

Mile a Day

Key Points

  • Increase pupils’ fitness
  • Reduce obesity and prevent lifestyle diseases
  • Improve social, emotional and mental wellbeing

Purpose

What were your reasons for doing this development work?

To improve the pupils’ physical, emotional and social health and wellbeing through a free and simple to implement activity. Inspire pupils to become more active and to start tracking their own progress and development in physical activity.

Who were the identified target learners?

56 pupils in Year 2

What were your success criteria?

That all pupils improve their stamina and ability to run a mile,

That all pupils improve their physical fitness and interest in becoming/staying fit.

What did you do? (What success criteria did you use?)

The intention is for a ‘Mile a Day’ to happen everyday outside no matter what the weather and at a suitable time for the class teacher. All pupils run, jog or walk around a marked out area of the school playground. Once the pupils know the route there is no need to set up any equipment.  ‘Mile a Day’ takes less than fifteen minutes with pupils running in their uniforms to save changing time. Teaching staff should join in and encourage pupils emphasising it’s a non-competitive but fun and social activity.

During March the whole school took part in a ‘Mile a Day’ to raise money for sports relief and to raise awareness of fitness.

I have also looked at pupil’s general focus and attainment in the classroom.

What specific teaching resources did you use?

No specific resources were necessary though we did use stopwatches to time the children’s early attempts and to record progress at set periods of time.

Outcomes and Impact

What has been the impact on pupil learning and teaching?

There is the time implication. Some classteachers have been unable to sustain 15 minutes every day and some have opted to do 2 or 3 times a week as this is preferable to never!

It has helped to further develop positive relationships between pupils and staff. It has improved pupil happiness. Pupils are calmer in lessons which take place after ‘A Mile a Day’

The project has supported a science project which Argyle is currently participating in. Over the past two terms ‘Mile a Day’ has had links with maths, measuring how fast they were at regular intervals (half termly) and putting this data into graphs. They have also had science links with Year 2’s ‘Healthy Me’ topic, listening to heartbeats before and after completing the mile.

Evidence of impact on pupil learning and teaching/leadership

  • Pupils’ achievement is still being measured but initial indicators are that this cohort has exceeded targets
  • Calm receptive pupils in the classroom
  • Fitness results of pupils in one class over a whole term (3 got faster by 10 seconds or more, 17 got faster, 2 got slower), some children were unable to be tested at both the start and end of term.
  • Pupils’ participation and concentration in lessons has improved
  • Pupils now settle more  quickly into lessons
  • Enthusiastic feedback given by pupils, parents and staff.