Healthy body, healthy mind, David King

Healthy body, healthy mind David King describes a successful whole school initiative

Appleford School celebrate their ISA award for their sporting provision

For a number of years it has been accepted that children have become less active, and the impact on their health and prospects has become ever more obvious. Recent NHS data (May 2018) supports this view with over 1/3 of Y6 pupils being overweight and 1/5 classified as obese. As a boarding school with 70% of our pupils spending as much time under our roof as at home, Appleford School decided to tackle this issue head on and make fundamental changes to our curriculum, daily organisation, timetable and extra-curricular programme. After all, if we didn’t do something, who would?

It was our aim not only to increase measurable levels of fitness and well-being in all pupils, but to also develop an enhanced range of sporting activities leading to increased participation and involvement in competitive sport. It was therefore decided to restructure the entire school day around access to PE, providing all the necessary resources. The school day was extended to 5pm to provide additional timetabled lessons in PE for all pupils. This resulted in every child engaging in daily 40 minute planned personal fitness programmes. These programmes were carefully planned and monitored by an increased PE staff body under the oversight of a new Head of PE. This element of change was not focussed primarily on participation in sport, but rather to bring our pupils to a level of fitness whereby participation would become a genuine option. Fitness levels were developed through a circuit training methodology combined with the monitoring of performance of all pupils using a range of performance assessment tools. Twice yearly reports were provided as part of the usual reporting procedures to evidence progress and to make sure parents were fully involved.

With a body of healthier, fitter children, a programme of enhanced participation sports was introduced. Rather than optional afterschool clubs, Wednesday afternoons were designated as co-curricular activity lessons, providing 3 hours

of timetabled sporting opportunities for all pupils to put their fitness into practice in a wider range of sports. In addition to the conventional sports, we now also have teams and individual participation in basketball, Australian rules football, boxing, Romano-Greco wrestling and trampolining, to name but a few.

A renewed focus was placed on competitive sport with weekly fixtures, many of them against much larger schools. In addition, we embraced the opportunities afforded through ISA involvement and entered teams in a range of events, with representation and a high level of success in swimming, cross country and athletics. At the recent ISA National Athletics Championships, Applefordians provided over 20% of the South

West team, medalling in a number of events and even breaking national records.

To put sporting excellence into the national context for our pupils, visits to sporting events were introduced, including rugby internationals, football league fixtures, county cricket matches and even a high profile Australian rules football match. Visits to the school by notable sportsmen were arranged, including Kenny Logan (Scotland RFU captain) and John Harris, a Paralympic gold medallist. Appleford also looked beyond the national stage, and competed at an international U16 netball tournament in Paris against over 50 teams from around the world, with our girls reaching the quarter finals before being knocked out by the Australians – much to their astonishment, as they fervently believed themselves to be the better team! Closer to home, we now host our local cricket team whose Sunday fixtures are a relaxing diversion for our weekend boarders.

This level of success is all the more remarkable considering we are a small school of only 140 pupils. It is down to the emphasis we have put on personal fitness and engagement in sport, and also a reflection of the school’s investment in equipment, resources and staff expertise – an additional minibus to ferry participants around, additional PE staff, a new (and very expensive!) sports hall floor and climbing wall. We have also reviewed our dining arrangements and appointed a new chef to ensure that all pupils have a healthy diet worthy of future Olympians.

It was originally thought by some that the extension of the school day and other changes would have a negative and tiring effect on learning. In fact, the opposite has been the case. There has been a measurable increase in engagement and attainment, including a 16% rise in GCSE attainment. Focus and concentration have improved, as has the motivation of the pupils to do well in all areas of their learning. The notion of ‘healthy body, healthy mind’ has been clearly demonstrated at the school to the acclaim and great support of the parent body. To cap it all, this initiative has been recognised by ISA with the 2018 Award for ‘Outstanding Sport’ (small school). David King is the Headmaster of Appleford School