Promoting 60 Active Minutes

Context, Intent and Target Group

Background Information

We have two SGOs based in Stockton-on-Tees and together we work with teachers and students from approximately 60 Primary Schools, 13 Secondary Schools and 3 Special Schools. 

Through conversations at our events, discussions at our PE Co-ordinator meetings  and surveys completed by teachers, we identified a lack of knowledge about the CMO guidelines for children to be active for an average of 60 minutes every day and more worryingly, a lack of understanding about the benefits associated with these activity levels.

What was the aim of work?

To develop a strategy to increase knowledge and understanding about the CMO guidance for children's activity levels  & associated benefits. Our target audience was students, teachers and parents/carers. 

We wanted to ensure that we use every opportunity and interaction with the target audience to raise the profile of Active 60 across Stockton-on-Tees.

Which outcome(s) did it focus on?

• 1. To advocate and position the delivery of the CMO daily active minutes for all young people, as a universal offer to maintain and grow school engagement

Which expectation(s) did it meet?

• Developing strategies to improve knowledge and understanding of the School Games for key stakeholders.
• Planning for and increasing delivery of 60 active minutes for every child.

Community links

• Active Partnerships

Intent

Our intent was to raise the profile of the CMO Guidelines of 60 Active Minutes and increase awareness of the benefits of physical activity.

Target group

• All School Staff
• All Young People

Implementation

We first identified existing opportunities within our calendar of events where we could tweak something to include information about Active 60:

1.  Leadership Academy Training: We developed our sports leadership training to include Active 60 workshops in order to increase understanding of Active 60 and the benefits of being active. Sports Leaders  have been rebranded as 'Active 60 Champions' with this branding featuring on their t-shirts. Students work together to agree the best way to advocate being active for 60 minutes and identify ways in which they can spread the message in school. Our Secondary leaders are challenged to co-create their own transition event to deliver to the least active Y6 students during the summer term. They are asked to consider why the children might not be active and aim to give them a positive experience and include information about the importance of being active.

2. Active 60 School of the Week: Using social media we ask schools to tag us in any activity they are doing in school to contribute to #Active60 . From this we identify a school to feature and congratulate as our 'Active 60 School Of The Week'. We also aim to share regular messaging and infographics on our social media pages which are followed by a large number of parents.

3. We now aim to start every competition and festival welcome with questions about Active 60 and a reference to the benefits of being active.

4. We worked in partnership with the Local Authority to promote Beat The Street and link it to our Active 60 Campaign.

In addition to this we have now introduced:

1. CPD for all teachers. We deliver CPD to our PE Co-ordinators to improve knowledge & understanding and have now developed recordings for them to share with their wider staff (short module to introduce the topic and then further recordings on active learning & active travel). We also include training for lunchtime supervisors to promote Active Playgrounds where we introduce the importance of Active 60 and benefits of being active.

2. Active 60 School of the Year

At our annual Sports Partnership Awards we have introduced a category for Active 60 School of the Year. Teachers can nominate their school by telling us how they have been innovative in ensuring all children get access to 30 minutes activity during the school day and encourage 30 minutes at home with parents and carers.

3. Active Together Pilot: Active 60 Bags

We have worked with our Active Partnership (Tees Valley Sport) and used School Games funding to pilot a project to get families to be active together at weekends. Schools have been provided with bags of sports equipment and an activity card to encourage family time being active. A class has access to 30 bags (16 different activities) and each card has information about the benefits  of being active. 

4. Infographic Posters

In partnership with the Active Partnership and other Tees Valley SGOs, we have helped to design posters for students and families which have been distributed  to schools. The infographics highlight the benefits and importance of being active every day.

Impact

Whilst we have advocated the importance of Active 60 for many years now, we have been more strategic for the past two years and we feel it is starting to pay off.

•  We surveyed our PE Co-ordinators from our primary schools in 2022 and 2024. When asked: 'Which of the following groups you are confident have a GOOD understanding of the Active 60 requirement and benefits of physical activity?' the results were as follows:
• KS1 Students = 50% (up from 20% in 2022)
• KS2 Students  = 87.5% (up from 30% in 2022)
• Teachers = 100% (up from 64% in 2022)
• Support Staff( = 62.5% (up from 28% in 2022)
• Headteacher = 87.5 ( up from 71% in 2022)
• Parents = 50% (up from 10% in 2022)
• Governors = 50% (up from 25% in 2022)
• When we question children at the start of our activities, we get far more children providing us with correct answers.
• We now have 'Active 60 Champions' leading activity and sharing the Active 60 message in over half of our schools.
• PE Co-ordinators say they feel more confident sharing the messages in school and with colleagues.
• We have had an increase in the number of  schools who are putting in nominations for our Active 60 School Award category.
• Feedback from parents using our Active 60 bags have reported that they have been doing an extra 15 - 90 minutes activity with their children over the weekends as a result of receiving the bags.
• When conducting student voice with students in our schools they are now starting to talk about wider benefits of physical activity including impact on mental health, sleep, physical health and learning.

Challenges

Engaging secondary schools remains a challenge but we will look to focus on this next year.

Reaching headteachers is not easy. Introducing the Active School Award has helped to spark a bit more interest.

Finding budget to pay for some of this work can be a challenge so we have worked in partnership with our AP and used some of the SSP budget to enable some of the initiatives to go ahead.

Sustainability

Moving forwards we need to update our CPD offer and modules for teachers to use in school. We will also look to offer training for school governors and will look to reintroduce our HT ambassadors to advocate on our behalf.

Active 60 Champion training days are embedded in our events calendar but we will now look to stay in contact with them at different points throughout the year to set different challenges to ensure they keep their messaging current and high on the agenda at school.

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