Increasing physical activity of schoolchildren

Description

Programme outcome the project contributes to: “Improved prevention and reduced inequalities in health”. The project aims to develop and disseminate a school culture that encourages the physical activity of students throughout a school day and to establish a support system for training and counselling of the schools.

Decreasing physical activity (PA) of children is a great concern. Evidence shows that schools has a high potential to support the PA of students. The aim of the project is to develop and disseminate a model where school culture encourages the PA of students throughout the school day and to establish sustainable scaling up of the model. The core content activities of the project are: 1) Model of Schools in Motion (SiM) development and validation; 2) SiM implementation in schools all over Estonia; 3) Awareness rising and dissemination of SiM principles, activities and best practices.Project activities shall include:

• The development and dissemination of the model of “the school inviting to move”;
• Training and counselling to support school teams to start or continue the dissemination of the school culture supporting the physical activity of students throughout the school day;
• Training and counselling of teachers on methods and skills to enhance the physical activity of children during lessons and recess;
• Training for teachers of physical education to support physical activity throughout the school day;
• Development of a training system for pupils acting as “play leaders” in schools;
• Exchange of best practices and counselling for schools on designing indoors and outdoors environment to support physical activity during the school day;
• Development of monitoring, analysis and evaluation tools/systems of project activities and dissemination of best practices;
• Co-operation and exchange of best practice with donor state experts, national and international experts.

Summary of project results

The project aimed to develop and disseminate a school culture that encourages the physical activity of students throughout a school day and to establish a support system for training and counselling of the schools as well as to establish a sustainable scaling up of the model. The core content activities of the project werere: 1) Model of Schools in Motion (SiM) development and validation; 2) SiM implementation in schools all over Estonia; 3) Awareness rising and dissemination of SiM principles, activities and best practices.

University of Tartu dealt with physical activity of schoolchildren with a very wide grasp, being the country-wide leading actor in dealing with the issue of increasing physical activity among Estonian schoolchildren. The FMO decided to highlight the project with an #OurStories video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COq6Y0nqZyA  

Project activities included:

• The development and dissemination of the model of Schools in Motion (SiM);
• The movement reached altogether 212 schools and approx. 90 000 pupils all over Estonia;
• The project promoter carried out 394 trainings and seminars for teachers and other concerned parties in order to: 
  • support school teams to start or continue the dissemination of the school culture supporting the physical activity of students throughout the school day;
  • train teachers on methods and skills to enhance the physical activity of children during lessons and recess;
  • train teachers of physical education to support physical activity throughout the school day;
  • give counsel to schools on designing indoors and outdoors environment to support physical activity during the school day;
• A training system for pupils acting as “play leaders” in schools was developed;
• 15 different tools and methods to advance physical activity in schools were developed;
• Monitoring, analysis and evaluation tools/systems of project activities and dissemination of best practices was carried out;
• Co-operation and exchange of best practices with donor state experts, national and international experts did take place;
• 16 academic articles on the subject of physical activity in the school environment were published. 

The University of Tartu’s Schools in Motion programme has achieved notable recognition by winning the Health-Promoting Schools Award at the MOVE Congress. This award is part of the ISCA Awards (International Sports and Culture Association https://awards.isca.org/), honouring outstanding initiatives in Health-Enhancing Physical Activity à https://www.educationestonia.org/school-in-motion-award/  

The network of Schools in Motion has reached 212 schools. Schools can receive science-based know-how on how to increase physical activity - active routes to the school, active lessons, active recess, physical education lessons, active schoolyards, roles and possibilities for teachers, play leaders and extra curricular activities, design of physically active school environment etc. 

The next phase is planning active school interventions at upper secondary level (high school). Cooperation with 3 state-owned upper-secondary schools (Saaremaa, Viljandi and Tallinn Mustamäe) has been launched to develop a model of motion also for this educational level.  Also, National Institute for Health Development has been engaged in activating a network of public health specialists in the educational sector.  

The activities of the Schools in Motion network are being further supported by the national budget (Ministry of Education and Research).  

Summary of bilateral results

Academic cooperation in research with the University of South-Eastern Norway has been genuinely positive and productive. Academic cooperation included bi-lateral academic research - two bi-lateral papers were published: a) "Pupils’ experiences of affordances in school-based physical activity in Norway and Estonia"; link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X24000325 and b) "School Children’s Physical Activity and Preferred Activities during Outdoor Recess in Estonia: Using Accelerometers, Recess Observation, and Schoolyard Mapping"; link: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/10/4/702 The experts of University of South-Eastern Norway participated at the annual Schools in Motion seminars in 2022 and 2023 with presentations regarding Norwegian experiences, and the specialists of the University of Tartu visited their Norwegian counterparts and participated at the programme on learning and moving during winter-time (2022). Norwegian doctorate student Eririni Pardali worked in the University of Tartu for her doctoral thesis for 4 months in 2023.