Everyday physical activity at primary school makes children healthier
A daily lesson in physical activity has been proven to make primary school children healthier, according to Professor Gerald Jarnig and his colleagues.
Gerald Jarnig explained that the daily sports lesson could be implemented without additional running costs and would not require any changes to timetables, lesson times and curricula, nor would classrooms have to be converted, as is sometimes stated. The study was published in the “Journal of Sports Science”.
In a pilot project, Jarnig organized daily physical activity classes for primary school children. “According to the curriculum, sports lessons are scheduled twice a week for 50 minutes,” says the researcher, who works as a freelancer at the Institute of Human Movement Sciences, Sport and Health at the University of Graz: “On the three days a week when there were no sports lessons, the children learned cognitive content in connection with specific movement activities in a German or mathematics lesson.”
They were also given homework that included physical activities. “For example, the children were asked to go for a walk in nature and were given a checklist of objects to be seen on this walk, such as a red car, a park bench or a crosswalk,” reads in detail the publication.
After nine months, the pupils in the test group with exercise units had noticeably higher increases in cardiopulmonary fitness, muscle strength and mobility than the pupils in the control group without daily activities, reports Jarnig. They also showed a reduction in the “hip to height” measure, i.e. were less corpulent. These effects were less pronounced in children who were active in a sports club. “So going to the sports club has the same effect,” says Jarnig.
“The only practicable option” – Jarnig 2023
Nevertheless, responsibility for children’s physical fitness should not be shifted to private clubs, he says: “Many parents are unable to take their children to training sessions at sports clubs due to their work commitments.” Some children also prefer to pursue artistic activities, for example in music clubs. “In the school environment, all children can participate equally in physical activities, regardless of their individual preferences and interests,” says the scientist: “It therefore seems to me that the only practicable option is to integrate a daily exercise session into the school day.”
Commentary by project supporter and co-author Prim. Prof. Dr. Reinhold Kerbl (Secretary General of Austrian Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine)
Learning in motion improves learning success, fitness and motivation
A project sponsored by the Austrian Society for Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine (ÖGKJ) entitled “Moving Learning” has come to the conclusion that combining movement and learning in the classroom has many positive effects for primary school children.
“The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the trend towards physical inactivity and obesity among children. Against this backdrop, countermeasures are urgently needed. Learning with physical activity gives pupils room to move and increases their ability to remember, while playfully promoting various motor skills such as balance, endurance and strength. And a decisive factor for learning success: children have fun during school lessons,” explains Prim. Prof. Dr. Reinhold Kerbl, Secretary General of the ÖGKJ. In the project, learning content was combined with exercise for at least one hour in the morning on days when there were no PE lessons. In German lessons, for example, pupils combined verb forms in the past with a lunge backwards, verb forms in the future with a lunge forwards and verb forms in the present with a jump on the spot.
12 schools from rural and urban regions of Klagenfurt took part in the “Moving School” pilot project with a total of 412 pupils attending third grade in spring 2021. For nine months, half of the children received lessons combined with movement and the other half followed the lessons sitting down as usual. At the end of the project, the children in the first group showed better cardiorespiratory endurance (improved heart and lung function), muscle strength and flexibility than the children who were assigned to the usual timetable. In particular, children who were not active in a sports club benefited from the “moving” lessons.
Intellectual advantages already proven in the past
Studies have shown that even a little movement can improve pupils’ cognitive performance. A study by Austrian and German researchers, for example, showed that eight-year-olds memorize words better when learning languages with movement or gestures. They asked 8-year-olds to imitate the words they were asked to memorize in another language by acting out the meaning of the word. For example, they were asked to spread out their arms and pretend to fly while memorizing the word for airplane. This significantly increased the likelihood of students remembering the word two to six months later.
“Exercise improves blood flow to the brain, promotes the connection between the right and left hemispheres of the brain and therefore improves memory, problem-solving skills and concentration. Another positive side effect is that pupils can better reduce excess energy, aggression and stress,” adds Prim. Prof. Dr. Kerbl, who heads the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at the LKH Hochsteiermark in Leoben. Learning content is best memorized when people are active themselves.
LINK to the presentation video:
Learning and moving – every school day! The video shows how learning content can be taught with movement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhDSIJa85ow
LINK to the publication:
