Tutor: “You look exhausted?”....
A member of the Form 3:… “Well I have had a very active day, swimming club this morning and then badminton in PE, then it was our turn to have extra Sport on Thursday afternoon, so we learnt how to play ultimate Frisbee, finished our capture the flag competition and then ran a Field Run as well!!”
With most grassroots sport being on hold, there has been much written in recent weeks surrounding the vital importance of physical activity amongst our younger generations. It seems the nation now unanimously understands that sedentary lifestyles can lead to all sorts of wellbeing difficulties further down the line. The NHS’s 'Change 4 Life' campaign is recommending that kids take part in 60 minutes of activity each day. As we find ourselves in a second lockdown, there is much for the St John’s community to celebrate and be thankful for, not least the continued high levels of access to physical activity.
It is clear now that the pandemic is going to span the majority of a calendar year and throughout we have encouraged students to take further ownership of their active lifestyles. We hope, therefore, that St John’s students would be able to confidently provide multiple good reasons for why we should all keep moving. Answers would include ideas such as: improves attention levels, strengthens muscles and bones, maintains a healthy weight, helps them sleep better and improves their mood!
The dialogue above indicates that the levels of activity this term have been as high as ever and the variety of sport on show has arguably increased. Measuring a whole school’s level of activity is very difficult. Readers may remember that during sports relief week last year, we estimated how far the St John’s students would have travelled during their Games and PE lessons in a week. Amazingly we discovered that by adding up all of the activities taking place, we could have reached Finland by day 5!
One method of potentially demonstrating how active our students are in these unprecedented times would be to measure their number of daily steps. Many students are currently wearing watches that can measure this, but they have to take them off for Games and PE. Mr Millward would love to give special permission to any students to wear their watch, where it is safe to do so, in order to carry out a mini experiment.
Watch this space for the findings over the coming weeks….