Physical activity provision in schools is about more than equipment

How schools engage with their physical activity equipment is just as important as the facilities and resources they have, a recent study shows. The study was led by Bristol BRC and ARC West researchers and is published in BMC Public Health.

Children aged five to 18 should spend at least an hour a day on physical activity that speeds up their heart rate and breathing, according to government guidelines. Yet by the end of primary school around half of children do not meet this target.

State primary schools have the opportunity to help children meet physical activity guidelines, as nearly all children attend them. But many initiatives that have tried to increase children’s physical activity levels at school have failed.

This study aimed to find out what primary school staff think about:

• The role of school facilities and resources – including spaces, equipment and staff – in helping children to be physically active
• What determines whether school facilities and resources are used

Staff reported that having appropriate facilities and resources is not enough. How active children are at school is also affected by:

• How supportive a school is of physical activity
• Logistical and timetabling challenges, for example competing for use of school halls with assemblies, lunches and after school clubs
• Changing seasons
• How fit for purpose facilities are for a particular school

The study showed that future initiatives to improve children’s activity levels in schools need to consider more than just the facilities and resources schools have. They also need to consider how individual schools use and maintain these.

Researchers gathered this information by interviewing 33 state primary school staff at 19 schools in the Bristol area. The schools ranged in size, location and sociodemographic characteristics.

They interviewed headteachers, deputy headteachers, class teachers, teaching assistants, physical education (PE) subject leads, dedicated PE teachers and a parent teacher association (PTA) chair.

Lead researcher Russ Jago, Professor of Physical Activity and Public Health at the University of Bristol and Theme Lead at ARC West, said:

“The results of this study highlight the need to think about how many aspects of a school can support physical activity.

Physical resources are important, but perhaps more important is how a school uses their resources and the decisions that are made to maximize physical activity opportunities within a school day.”

This research is part of the PASSPORT study, aimed at working with schools to develop a menu of physical activity options they can choose from to produce their own physical activity programme. PASSPORT is funded by a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Frontier Research Grant.