SIDDALMOOR BREAKS NEW GROUND IN PUPILS’ EXERCISE HABITS WITH ROLL OUT OF SPORTPLAN HEALTH PASSPORT

  • July 15, 2007

Siddalmoor sports college school sports partnership has for the first time been able to prove how much sport and exercise its pupils are getting outside of school, following a trial of the Sportplan Health Passport in eleven of its schools.

The first partnership in the country to use the ground breaking technology, Siddalmoor Partnership Development Manager, Wayne Shingler has been talking about how the product has made an impact already in the schools he oversees.

“School sports partnerships have tried in the past to get evidence of how much sports and exercise youngsters are getting, particularly as it relates to the required target of two hours per week. Throughout Siddalmoor School Sport Partnership Primary & Secondary schools, we found we could prove what pupils were doing in schools, but not outside it. However, the introduction of Sportplan gave us, for the first time, an opportunity to prove what was happening outside school.

Health Passport is a bright, easy to use online diary, which motivates children through achievement certificates and encourages parental involvement. Pupils are encouraged by their teachers to record information, views and feelings in the online diary on subjects as diverse as whether they feel happy or sad, how much exercise they take, how they travel to school and what they eat. Results can be collated by class, year group, whole school or gender enabling teachers to see what percentage of pupils have done what, what percentage feel what, and what percentage have eaten what and then using this data to inform their lesson planning. The logs of individual pupils remain private, though parents can receive a confidential email weekly outlining for them what their child has recorded on the system, so they can pick up on whether their child has recorded any worrying emotions or problems.

“What’s great about the system is that it is class-based and not focused on the individual, so there is no pressure put on the child. The teacher takes the results from the class, looks at issues and then addresses them to the class as a whole, so no child is singled out. This obviously encourages children to participate and to do so with more honesty.

“But it’s not just the children who benefit from the system”, says Wayne, “The system can alleviate many of the headaches schools suffer under the pressure of government targets. Every school in the country would benefit from the system as every school is obliged to undertake government strategies in order to hit targets, so whether it’s healthy schools, extended learning or every child matters, the system fits nicely with many other existing government initiatives as it gives every child, even the quietest ones, a voice.”

“We’ve found that with Sportsplan it has enabled us to answer the 2010 aspiration of 4 hours per week in the schools involved years in advance, as we can see the bigger picture with regards to the activities children are undertaking outside of school and assess appropriate strategies to increase participation in exercise where it needs to be directed. With the help of Sportplan we’re already at 90% against a national target of 85% by 2008.”

The system is being piloted in 11 schools within the partnership and already following the success of the trial, there are plans to get partnership funding to install it in all 36 schools in the partnership as of September 2007.

Further information is available at www.sportplan.net/hp

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Press Information
Joe Palmer or Howard Robinson
Early Doors
T 0207 754 5560
E joe@earlydoors.com or howard@earlydoors.com

About Sportplan

Sportplan offers a range of interactive online sports coaching programmes for use from school through to elite athlete level. The resources enable coaches and teachers to achieve the best for their players and teams through use of online libraries incorporating thousands of Flash animated practice drills, from which teachers can create, save and edit their own coaching sessions or lessons.

In addition, Sportplan has also developed Health Passport, a data collection system created to assist teachers and schools in the delivery of, and demonstrating evidence for ‘Healthy Schools’ and ‘Every Child Matters’ programmes. It is designed for use with children aged six years and older to promote PSHE, physical activity, healthy eating and emotional health and wellbeing in the school setting.