Beyond Jonny’s story: a whole class physical activityintervention

Previously (2016), the authors Howells and Bowen were inspired by
Collingwood et al.’s (2000) proposal that physical exercise can raise self esteem and they investigated the potential impact of physical activity interventions for one case study child (Jonny) on his self-esteem and reading and numeracy academic levels. They found that Jonny had significant improvements to both his self-esteem and academic achievements.

In 2017, the researchers extended ‘beyond Jonny’s story’ to investigate a year long, whole class physical activity intervention and if there were any opportunities and challenges in communication and working as a team through undertaking a new daily physical activity interventions of the Daily Mile’ (The Daily Mile Foundation, 2017). In Holland and Scotland schools have already been undertaking a school running initiative of ‘The Daily Mile’, which includes children walking, running and jogging a mile a day within the school environments, playgrounds and fields. A mile a day has also been recommended within the recent Childhood Obesity Strategy (HM Government, 2016) as a way to encourage children to move to increase positive attitudes towards movement.

This paper will report on the whole class academic levels in numeracy and literacy, well-being levels, levels of communication, including speech and language that were developed through the daily physical activity interventions.

It was also observed how handwriting skills were improved
through having time and space to practice whilst walking/running. As the year progressed, the children identified how important the daily mile was to them and how they wanted to complete it.