A six-week study, conducted by Leeds Beckett University, has evidenced that a physically active learning programme, Maths on the Move, allowed 28 per cent more children to achieve the recommended physical activity levels in a school day and drove improvements in maths attainment.
These findings support a year-long study by programme designer, Aspire. Across the academic year, 2019 – 2020, 5,376 children aged 5-11 years, attending 179 schools took part in the Maths on the Move study. At the end of the programme, which involved the children attending a 60-minute Maths on the Move session once a week, 93 per cent of the children demonstrated an improvement in maths performance, with an average improvement of 53.9 per cent when comparing pre- and post- programme assessment scores. Eighty per cent of children also reported an increase in confidence relating to maths.
“Now all children have returned to their school setting and they can get back to their familiar routine, it is more important than ever that physical activity becomes an integral part of the school day. Creating structured, active learning programmes like Maths on the Move, enables the introduction of more opportunities for children to be active, providing an alternative opportunity to learning at a desk,” says Andrew Stanton, head of education at Aspire.
“As a nation, if we are to protect the health of our children and drive academic performance we need to add another dimension to the classroom setting so that a physically active learning environment and programme can enhance and complement the traditional approach. Both the Leeds Beckett University study and our own research confirm the benefits this approach delivers.”
The six-week study evidenced that the children who took part increased their average daily activity levels and demonstrated improvements in maths performance. In terms of the physical activity, on average children secured an additional five minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and 5.7 minutes of light physical activity (LPA), with a reduction of 9.5 minutes of inactive time compared to the children who remained in the classroom setting. These results help demonstrate how MOTM can contribute to schools meeting current government guidelines, set out in the School Sport and Activity Action Plan that children are active for 60 minutes every day, half of which they should do during school hours.