Activity Type
The Daily Mile
Audience
Children and Young People
Date
February 2019
Location
Maidstone
Inclusivity
The Daily Mile is an inclusive initiative that all students can take part in.
Health Benefits
The Daily Mile improves pupil health; specifically for Louie, whose asthma has dramatically improved. His respiratory specialist has attributed this to taking part in regular physical activity.
Innovation
Every term the school run a different themed competition to add variety and keep it fresh.
Pupil Engagement
Since starting The Daily Mile pupils are far more active, and many have now represented the school at a range of sporting events.
What made you want to introduce The Daily Mile at Greenfields Community Primary School?
Headteacher Mr Andrews said: “When I came in to post I was shocked to find that children were more overweight leaving primary school than they were when they started, and I knew we had to do something about that. Sport was a key part of school for me as a child, and I wanted to share that experience with my pupils”.
Around the same time Head of Sport & Wellbeing, Mrs Ball, watched as Elaine Wyllie, founder of The Daily Mile, received a Pride of Britain award for her ground-breaking initiative. Mrs Ball thought it would be a great idea that could be recreated back at school and so when she took the idea to Mr Andrews there was no hesitation!
How does The Daily Mile work at your school?
We do The Daily Mile every day without exception and the children love it. Each class teacher takes their class out when they are ready and most do it in the mornings. We have a line marking the route around the playground, and the children know that 7 laps is a mile. We use number cubes to help them keep track of their laps-each child collects a cube when they have completed a lap, and they love showing us how many they have collected!
What benefits have you seen since introducing The Daily Mile?
We run an inter-class competition with a different theme each term. Pupils know that each mile counts towards their class total and as a result we have seen real improvements in attendance as no one wants to miss their mile! We have even had pupils ask if they can make up their missed days at lunch because they don’t want to let their class down, so it builds a team ethic too.
Fitness benefits have also been huge. We host regular Cross-Country events with other local schools each bring a team of 6 and this year Greenfields took all top 6 places! This in turns builds a positive association with physical activity for our pupils-they enjoy sport, and all want to be in school teams now.
Do you have any success stories you would like to share?
One of our Year 4 pupils, Louie, has quite bad asthma. At a Cross Country event last year, he really struggled and only completed half the course due to his asthma flaring up. Doing The Daily Mile has transformed his health—he hardly uses his inhaler now and during a recent visit his respiratory specialist said this is highly likely due to the regular exercise which has helped to improve his lung and muscular function. At this year’s Cross Country, he not only managed to complete the course, but even went on to finish 6th!
We asked Louie what he liked about The Daily Mile and he said: “I enjoy it because it makes me fitter and faster and now I am in the football squad. I also like it because it helps me concentrate and gives me a break”.