Primary School Physical Activity Research Articles

Pupil Voices: Review of Factors Influencing Pupil Participation in Primary School Physical Activity

ABSTRACT Context Because the purpose of school-based physical activity (PA) interventions is to improve academic and/or health-related outcomes for children, their views must be considered for such programs to be successful. To inform the development of acceptable initiatives, a need exists to examine and synthesize pupil perspectives. Objective This review explores what is known about primary-aged pupils’ perspectives on school-based PA and qualitatively synthesizes the factors that influence pupil participation. Design This rapid qualitative review was conducted systematically and followed the Enhancing Transparency in Reporting the Synthesis of Qualitative Research (ENTREQ) guidelines. Eligibility Criteria Peer-reviewed articles published in the English language between January 2013 and April 2023 that reported qualitative data on primary school pupil participation in school-based PA were included. Study Selection Databases searched were Medline (Web of Science), ERIC (Education Collection-ProQuest), and EBSCO (Academic Search Complete, Education Source, ERIC, APA PsycArticles, APA PsycInfo, SportDiscus, CINAHL complete, Medline Full Text, Humanities Source Ultimate). Twenty-one articles that included qualitative evaluations of pupil participation in school-based PA from the pupil perspective were included. Main Outcome Measures The main outcome measured was pupil perceptions of factors that influence their participation in school-based PA. Results Ten themes emerged from the pupil data. The most prevalent was fun and enjoyment, followed by perceived health benefits, social interaction, and perceived academic benefits. Autonomy, appropriate level of challenge, perceived motor competence, school culture and environment, outdoor play, and influence of teachers were also identified. Conclusion To promote participation in PA, schools must support autonomy with developmentally appropriate equipment and space to facilitate physically active games. Positive and encouraging adults must maintain socially safe environments where pupils can be active with their friends. Physical education must be highly regarded, and pupils should have multiple opportunities to engage in PA throughout the school day.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the physical activity environment in English primary schools: a multi-perspective qualitative analysis.

The COVID-19 lockdowns and social distancing measures, including school closures, had a major impact on children's physical activity in England, with data showing an initial reduction in activity in the short-term post-lockdown phase of the pandemic followed by a recovery on average in the medium-term post-lockdown period. The school environment is an important context for child physical activity. The purpose of this study is to understand the changes that took place to school physical activity environments once schools reopened after lockdowns. This information will improve understanding of why changes to children's physical activity have occurred over the course of the pandemic and the implications for future promotion of physical activity in schools. Interviews with parents (n = 43), school staff (n = 18) and focus groups with 10- to 11-year-old children (participant n = 92) were conducted at two time points: between September-December 2021 and February-July 2022. Interview and focus group guides covered the impact of the pandemic on child physical activity and changes to this over time. The framework method was used for analysis. Three themes and three subthemes were generated: (1) the return to school; (2) over-pressured staff and environment and (3) the uneven impact of the pandemic. Theme 3 consists of three subthemes: (a) retained pandemic policies, (b) impact on physical activity culture and (c) different children need different things. Conducting this research in schools during ongoing COVID-19 disruptions was a challenge and may have limited school and participant participation, particularly school staff. The parent interview sample is predominantly female, active and of higher socioeconomic status, so the experiences of male, less active and lower socioeconomic parents are limited. This study suggests that the impact of COVID-19 on child physical activity is uneven, affecting some children more than others. Future work is therefore needed to explore the details of this potential diverging experience. The COVID-19 pandemic, school closures and post-lockdown school policies have impacted upon primary school physical activity environments. The post-lockdown school environment is highly pressured, impacting the extent to which schools can support and encourage child physical activity. Future research is needed to further explore the impact of post-lockdown changes on physical activity environments in schools, particularly over the longer term, as schools continue to adapt post lockdowns. Strategies required to support school physical activity environments must be context specific and sensitive to these changes, pressures and needs. This article presents independent research funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Public Health Research programme as award number NIHR131847.

Co-Creation of a School-Based Motor Competence and Mental Health Intervention: Move Well, Feel Good.

Low motor competence (MC) and inhibited psychosocial development are associated with mental health difficulties. Improving children's MC through school-based physical activity interventions emphasising psychosocial development may therefore be a mechanism for promoting positive mental health. This study describes and provides reflective insights into the co-creation of 'Move Well Feel Good', a primary school physical activity intervention to improve children's MC and mental health. Class teachers, school leaders, physical activity specialists, and children (aged 8-9 years) participated in a series of co-creation workshops. Stakeholders' knowledge and experiences were integrated with existing research evidence using creative methods (e.g., post-it note tasks, worksheets, and drawings) to facilitate discussion. The co-creation process culminated in stakeholder consensus voting for one of three proposed intervention ideas. Children cited physical and mental health benefits, enjoyment with friends, and high perceived competence as motives for being physically active. Opportunities to develop MC across the different segments of the school day were identified by adult stakeholders, who perceived children's lack of resilience, an overloaded curriculum, and poor parental support for physical activity as barriers to intervention implementation. The chosen intervention idea received six out of a possible twelve votes. Co-creation projects are specific to the contexts in which they are implemented. This study reinforces the complex nature of school-based intervention development and highlights the value of engaging with stakeholders in co-creation processes.

The convergent effects of primary school physical activity, sleep, and recreational screen time on cognition and academic performance in grade 9

Lab-based experiments and randomized controlled trials consistently demonstrate improvements in youth cognition following physical activity (PA), while cross-sectional studies suggest that sedentary behavior (especially recreational screen time [RST]) and poor sleep are inversely related to cognition. However, little is known about how these 24-h movement behaviors-sleep, PA, and sedentary behavior-converge to affect youth cognition. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to test the associations between childhood 24-h movement behaviors and adolescent cognition using a longitudinal design and examine moderating effects of each behavior. This study utilized structural equation modeling with data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 1,364, 52% female, 80% White). Independent variables-sleep, RST, and PA-were collected in grade 5. Dependent variables of cognitive and academic performance were collected at grade 9, including the Stroop task, Woodcock-Johnson, and Tower of London. Grade 5 PA was inversely associated with grade 9 cognition, but this relationship was no longer significant once grade 5 cognition was controlled for in analyses. Grade 5 sleep was positively related to grade 9 cognition, whether baseline cognition was controlled for or not. Finally, grade 5 RST was inversely related to cognition and academic performance, regardless of whether baseline values were controlled. Moderation analyses showed the relationship between grade 5 RST and grade 9 cognition was moderated by grade 5 PA, while the relationship between grade 5 PA and grade 9 cognition was moderated by grade 5 sleep. In each case, more PA and sleep blunted the negative relationships. These findings extend evidence that greater sleep promotes cognition and greater RST impairs cognition, by affirming these relationships over a longer period. They extend the evidence by demonstrating that the longitudinal relationship between individual 24-h movement behavior and cognition is moderated by other behaviors.

S06-4 Exploring correlates of adolescent boys' muscular fitness: a mixed-methods formative study

Abstract Background According to the Elaborated Environmental Stress Hypothesis, anxiety and depression in children are associated with poor motor competence, and these associations may be mediated by social support and self-perceptions. Improving children’s motor competence through school-based physical activity interventions may therefore be a mechanism for promoting positive mental health through psychosocial factors. Co-production provides opportunities to participate in intervention development processes, thereby ensuring that specific needs of stakeholders are targeted. The shared stakeholder ownership of the process provides a context-sensitive basis for acceptable interventions with increased likelihood of them being effectively implemented and resulting in positive outcomes. This presentation describes phase 1 of the Move Well, Feel Good study, which aimed to co-produce and evaluate the feasibility of a primary school physical activity intervention to improve children’s motor competence and mental health. Methods Five primary schools were recruited from a low socioeconomic status community in northwest England. From these schools, stakeholder groups were formed consisting of class teachers, school leaders, physical activity specialists, and children (aged 8-9 years). Stakeholders worked in single and multiple stakeholder groups through a 6-stage process aligned to the Double Diamond Design Approach by employing divergent and convergent thinking processes to discover, define, develop, and deliver a solution to the ‘problems’ of how best to improve children’s motor competence and mental health, and how best to facilitate real-world school context implementation of the intervention. Through this process the child and adult stakeholders worked separately in workshops and engaged in additional learning and consensus activities. The adult stakeholder co-production workshops were informed by the children’s views and current research evidence. Multiple-stakeholder groups worked collaboratively to develop intervention ideas, which were presented, critiqued, and refined in alignment with the TIDieR checklist. Results In the final stage of the process the research team presented the final co-produced interventions back to the stakeholders and a consensus vote was taken to decide which intervention would be implemented in the phase 2 feasibility trial in September 2022. Conclusions School stakeholders’ participation in intervention co-production ensures their ownership of the finalised programme, which may be important for subsequent implementation and engagement.

S06 Engaging peers, parents and pupils to increase physical activity among adolescents

BackgroundRegular physical activity is associated with physiological and mental health benefits for adolescents including improved fitness and cardiometabolic health, increased muscle and bone strength and reduced risk of obesity. Despite this, globally, many adolescents (81%) fail to meet physical activity guidelines. Physical activity levels decline as children move into adolescence and through to adulthood and may affect the likelihood of developing chronic health conditions. It is recognised that parental support and friendship networks play an important role in attenuating declines in physical activity during adolescence and it is vital that we develop effective interventions to help adolescents stay active.AimThis symposium will engage policymakers, professionals, scientists and stakeholders to discuss research projects on Engaging peers, parents and pupils to increase physical activity among adolescents. The goals of this symposium are to highlight the challenges and ongoing work to address sub-optimal levels of physical activity in this population and disseminate the results of novel physical activity interventions to develop knowledge and understanding. This symposium will share experiences, learning and best practice in Patient and Public Involvement (PPI), transitioning from formative research to feasibility testing and upscaling interventions and it will also allow for debate and to identify gaps and priority areas for physical activity among adolescents.Symposia presentations1. Putting young people at the heart of physical activity research design: The Walking In ScHools (WISH) Study (Professor Marie Murphy, Ulster University)This presentation will outline the importance of youth PPI and demonstrate how PPI can be embedded within research design using the WISH Study Youth Advisory Group as a case study.2. The Girls Active Project (GAP): Co-design and feasibility of an after school-based physical activity intervention (Sara McQuinn, Dublin City University)This presentation will discuss the factors influencing physical activity behaviour in adolescents, outline how using public and patient involvement (PPI) and the behaviour change wheel provided a framework for developing the Girls Active Project, and the results from our feasiblity trial.3. Supporting our lifelong engagement: mothers and teens exercising (SOLE MATES); from formative research to feasibility testing (Dr Elaine Murtagh, University of Limerick).Dr Murtagh will discuss the value of formative research in developing interventions and present findings from a novel mother-daughter multi-component physical activity programme.4. Co-production of the Move Well, Feel Good movement behaviours intervention (Stuart Fairclougt, Edge Hill University)This presentation will describe phase 1 of the Move Well, Feel Good study, which aimed to co-produce and evaluate the feasibility of a primary school physical activity intervention to improve children’s motor competence and mental health.5. The Walking In ScHools (WISH) Study: Development and evaluation of a peer-led school-based walking intervention in adolescent girls from pilot to fully-powered trial (Professor Marie Murphy, Ulster University)Professor Murphy will describe how the WISH pilot study guided the development of a full trial to evaluate the effects of a peer-led walking intervention at increasing physical activity in adolescent girls.

A realist case study inquiry of English primary school physical activity initiatives

ABSTRACT Concern that children are not engaging in enough physical activity (PA) to bring about health benefits is a crisis globally. This paper aims to examine primary school-based PA initiatives from within an English context. A qualitative inquiry was adopted and underpinned by the socio-ecological model. The study was presented through a realist case study of three selected primary schools to reveal a collection of context-mechanism-outcome statements across five levels of the socio-ecological model (individual, interpersonal, institutional, community and policy). The findings highlighted a multi-layered interaction of PA within the school setting as well as the school’s own relationships with external influences. Three key components emerged from the research findings; these included the (1) teacher’s unintentional facilitation of simple PA in classroom settings, (2) innovative uses of community networks as an additional resource to schools and (3) the uncovering of a complexity of external influences from home, community and policies on school-based initiatives.

A practice theory approach to primary school physical activity: opportunities and challenges for intervention

ABSTRACT A significant body of critical scholarship exists problematizing the dominant behavioural-individualist approaches to public health policy and intervention, and practice theories have been noted for their potential in providing an alternative. Children’s physical activity in primary school settings continues to be a major area of attention in public health, yet no critical examination of a practice theory approach exists in this context. This paper addresses this gap by applying the prevalent three-elements model of practices to the case of children’s school-based physical activity. Drawing on focus group, interview and observation data from pupils, staff and parents at one primary school setting in England, our analysis highlights; first, how the configurations of (a) physical resources (e.g. playground space and equipment), (b) practical know-how (e.g. a skilled understanding of performing the activity), and (c) the socio-cultural significance of practices (e.g. the values and meanings of the activity) impact how, and whether children’s physical activity happens, and is sustained or interrupted; and second, by showing how physically active practices are contingent on being simultaneously in harmony or conflict with other routinized practices of the school day. We conclude that the three-elements model offers a helpful framework for understanding school physical activity which de-centres the individual, but that there are challenges in using this analysis to support primary schools as they attempt to enable physically active practices more effectively. Further research is required to develop and evaluate a practice theory approach to promoting children’s physical activity.

Acceptability and Feasibility of Single-Component Primary School Physical Activity Interventions to Inform the AS:Sk Project

Multi-component school-based interventions provide physical activity (PA) opportunities for children but are often difficult for schools to execute and may not be implemented as intended. The primary aim of this study was to explore the acceptability and feasibility of three brief single-component primary school PA interventions targeting 9–10-year-old children. The secondary aim was to examine the effectiveness of the interventions on increasing PA levels and reducing sedentary time. The single-component interventions included active classroom breaks (AB; 3 schools; n = 119 children) Born to Move (BTM) exercise videos (2 schools; n = 50 children), and playground supervisory staff training (2 schools; n = 56 children). Qualitative data from participating children (n = 211), class teachers (n = 6), and playground supervisory staff (n = 8) explored the experiences, acceptability, and feasibility of each intervention component. Accelerometers were worn by 225 children during the last week of implementation. Teachers reported that they were able to implement ABs daily, but BTM videos were more difficult to implement daily because of accessing sufficient space. Playground staff reported difficulties in implementing activities due to children’s age and competing responsibilities on the staffs’ time. Children reported that the ABs and BTM videos were enjoyable. During half hour time windows, including the ABs and BTM videos, children engaged in 4.8 min and 8.6 min of moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) on average, respectively. ABs and BTM videos positively affected MVPA. ABs were feasible to implement; however, teachers faced some barriers in implementing the BTM videos. Feasibility of playground interventions may be dependent on staff responsibilities and age of the children.

Going further than the 'Daily Mile'.

A recent primary school initiative encouraged pupils to run or walk a mile each day. Andy Fairhurst and Sarah Hotham of the Centre for Health Services Studies, University of Kent, highlight the importance of encouraging children to explore a full range of social and physical activities, building foundations for continued physical activity in later life.[Image omitted: See PDF.]In 2015, media attention focussed on a Scottish primary school where the introduction of a 'Daily Mile' saw pupils run or walk a mile, taking around 15 min each day.[1] The benefits claimed by the school and media included that obesity had been eliminated and that educational attainment and concentration had been improved.[2],[3] The simplicity and replicability of the concept has caught the attention of the health and education sector, and over the last year, there have been moves to reproduce the programme across England.Why not the Daily Mile?The Daily Mile falls short of where primary school physical activity needs to be. While an additional 15 min or more per day of activity will contribute to achieving the recommended daily minimum of 60 min of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity in children,[4] the Daily Mile is an overly simplistic contribution to energy expenditure that misses opportunities to develop a range of physical and social skills. Furthermore, it is a potential contributor to the issues underpinning physical inactivity later in life.It also fails to address what children want from physical activity. Children have an inherent interest in physical activity-based play and a strong belief in its value, with the main reasons for positive attitudes towards physical activity identified as fun and enjoyment, being with friends and the sense of belonging to a team.[5] It is unlikely that an enforced mile run will engender these feelings in every child.The worst case scenario is that the Daily Mile is setting up a generation for a lifetime of inactivity. Low levels of participation after leaving primary school are often due to negative experiences of primary school sport and physical activity, particularly in girls.[6] Reasons cited for children and young people not wanting to participate in physical activity in primary school include getting cold and wet,[7] and boredom;[5] both commensurate with a compulsory year-round outdoor run in school uniform.The Current State of Primary School Physical EducationThe excitement with which the Daily Mile has been received is a tacit admission that there is a lack of structured physical activity in primary schools. Physical education (PE) lessons in England last an average of 108 min, well below the daily recommended levels of physical activity.[8] Outside classes and break times provide an opportunity for free play, but for children who are already disengaged with physical activity, this time is usually spent sedentary.[9]There is also a variation in quality of primary school PE delivery. Initial Teacher Training allocates a maximum of 12 h to physical education, meaning primary teachers do not feel confident or safe delivering PE lessons.[10] Furthermore, many teachers start with preconceived views of PE, usually shaped from their own negative school experiences, which are difficult or impossible to change.[10]Building the Foundations of a Sporting FutureThe benefits of the Daily Mile claimed are not exclusive to a mile's walk or run, but are the widely reported benefits of physical activity. If schools are to commit time to physical activity, could it be better spent promoting physical literacy, movement skills and leadership as well expending energy?Physical literacy is the foundation of PE and school sport and describes the range of motor skills, flexibility, agility, co-ordination, confidence and motivation required to take part in physical activity or sport. …

Quantitative ultrasound in relation to risk factors for low bone mineral density in South African pre-menopausal women

SummaryThe study describes the association between risk factors and quantitative ultrasound bone measures in black and mixed-race pre-menopausal South African women. Despite some differences between the two study groups, the findings generally lend support to the use of ultrasound for epidemiological studies of bone mass in resource-limited settings.IntroductionQuantitative ultrasound at the calcaneus is a convenient and inexpensive method of estimating bone strength well suited to community-based research in countries with limited resources. This study determines, in a large sample of pre-menopausal South African women, whether characteristics associated with quantitative ultrasound measures are similar to those shown to be associated with bone mineral density as measured by dual X-ray absorptiometry.MethodsThis cross-sectional study included 3,493 women (1,598 black and 1,895 mixed race), aged 18–44 living in Cape Town. Study nurses administered structured interviews on reproductive history, lifestyle factors, and measured height and weight. Calcaneus quantitative ultrasound measurements were obtained using the Sahara device. Adjusted means of ultrasound measures according to categories of risk factors were obtained using multivariable regression analysis.ResultsAssociations between quantitative ultrasound measures and age, body mass index, age at menarche, parity, and primary school physical activity were similar to those known for bone mineral density as measured by dual X-ray absorptiometry. There were no clear associations between quantitative ultrasound measures and educational level, alcohol use, cigarette smoking, and current calcium intake.ConclusionThe data give qualified support to the use of quantitative ultrasound as an epidemiological tool in large studies of bone strength in pre-menopausal women.

247 New Zealand primary school physical activity project: changes in child and parents’ perceptions of physical education and physical aActivity

247 New Zealand primary school physical activity project: changes in child and parents’ perceptions of physical education and physical aActivity