Hands up if your child’s primary school started the daily mile?
Keep your hand up if they are still doing it. More than likely it started with great intentions but slipped down the pecking order to become a sporadic outing before disappearing entirely from consciousness.
Elaine Wyllie, a retired head teacher who was based at St Ninian’s primary school in Stirling, pioneered the initiative in 2012 amidst growing evidence that the children in her care were less fit than any other generation that she could recall. Within the first month, children were able to run a mile without stopping with teachers and parents reporting greater concentration in class, a reduction in behavioural issues and all-round increased confidence and health.
For a while the last year, the daily mile was the buzz word in schools up and down the country as Mrs Wyllie encouraged others to follow suit.
The benefits of something as simple as the daily mile are obvious; its implementation would appear not quite so straightforward.
Perhaps it owes much to the increased pressure on teachers, the perennial cut, cut, cutting of resources, the large class sizes, the reduction of classroom assistants and doubtless many more pressures that go unseen.
But it feels like another opportunity wasted. Given the increasing weight on those teachers in the classroom to meet targets and live up to the dreaded league-table standards, sport is subsequently regarded as one of the obvious disposables.
And what that gives rise to is the “elite” children, particularly in larger schools, who are then cherry-picked for competitive events while gym time is restricted to those who don’t make the cut for the cross-country team, for the netball squad, for the badminton team.
There is a persuasive argument that those children who don’t make it past the sports trials are the very children who would benefit most from involvement. Even more concerning is the discouragement of a door being closed and access denied at such a teachable and influential age.
East Renfrewshire council enjoys an enviable reputation in terms of its academic successes. Last Friday this newspaper published the recent stats from state schools with East Ren secondary schools taking three of the top five spots.
Forever referred to in print as “leafy”, East Renfrewshire boasts immediate access to Rouken Glen park, which was recently voted Britain’s best; earlier this month the park was host to the annual primary schools’ cross-country championships with youngsters oblivious to the wintry conditions as they traded books for muddy laps of the park.
Well, some youngsters.
Myopically, it was selected children who were chosen to represent their school rather than an open festival in which all children were encouraged to get their trainers on and get out and participate. Back to that opportunity missed.
Cancer Research UK have recently launched a campaign to highlight the risks associated with obesity and its links to 13 different preventable cancers. Those of us raising children in an era of an unprecedented array of computer screens and the seductiveness they offer will be sick of listening to the dangers of sedentary lifestyles and the lack of informal outdoor play opportunities.
So why then are we restricting sport participation? Why at primary school level are we encouraging only the fastest to run; only the best to compete? We would not dream of only handing out library cards to the fluent and voracious readers, so why are we giving certain access to sport only to those who excel?
No one wins.
Commentators have long wrung their hands at the grim stats involving adolescent girls and sports participation as levels fall drastically when they cross the threshold from primary to secondary school.
Schools cannot be answerable to the ills of society but at the same time there needs to be a level playing field when it comes to opportunities for a healthy, fit and active lifestyle.
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