News
Lead the fight against inactivity M
any consider obesity as the most significant issue affecting the health of our nation’s children. Education Today recently spoke to Dr William Bird, founder of Intelligent Health and expert on childhood exercise, for his thoughts. “While a balanced diet is important, the real problem is not obesity, but inactivity. In reality, obesity is a by- product of inactivity and it is this lack of exercise that’s detrimental to children’s health.
“The NHS recommends that young people aged 5 to 18 should do at least 60 minutes of aerobic activity every day. Despite this, a recent YouGov survey found more than half of all the UK’s school children aged 5-16 do not even walk to school. This figure is striking because studies show walking or cycling to school provides a third of all exercise for children. With an average PE lesson only resulting in 10 minutes of actual exercise, children are clearly not getting the activity they need to stay fit and healthy.
Dr William Bird (MBE)
“Improving activity has to be a community lead project and schools are ideally positioned to drive this forward. Although there is only so far that a teacher and school can go to encourage parents and children to get active, the most successful methods of
sustaining lifestyle changes are social and competitive. Starting schemes, clubs and competitions that challenge both children and parents to take part will help encourage families to work towards a shared goal as well as being inter-competitive. This will encourage a sense of inclusion amongst participants alongside driving them to sustain this new activity. Ideas can be as simple or elaborate as the mind, time and budget allows.
“A UK-based project we conducted, Beat the Street, to get children walking to school, was independently evaluated by the Evidence centre. The initiative, which incorporated both a competitive and social element, found 81% of children aged between 9-13 felt they had improved concentration levels and were calmer in class. This correlation between walking and concentration in class has also been backed by the Danish universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus. This essentially means that a child who walks to school will be happier, healthier and more productive in the classroom; a winning combination for all.”
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www.nhs.uk u
www.intelligenthealth.co.uk
Teach your monster to read! C
haritable fund The Usborne Foundation has released the sequel to the multi- award-winning, free, online game, Teach Your Monster to Read: First Steps. The new game, Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun With Words is an expertly designed and inspiring way to help children take the next important steps in learning to read. The sequel builds on the success of the debut game, which last year scooped a number of educational awards including Practical Pre- School Gold Award, Primary Teacher Update Gold Award, Junior Design Awards (Highly Commended) and was a BETT Award 2013 finalist.
Built on the principles of synthetic phonics, Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun With Words provides children with the next set of key building blocks to help develop their reading skills and ignite a permanent interest in
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reading. It complements the Letters and Sounds programme up to the end of Phase 4 and has been assessed by reading experts at Roehampton University.
The new adventure starts where the last game left off, introducing new graphemes and phonemes, new tricky words and even includes comprehension of sentences and captions. There is lots more blending and segmenting practice too.
The game takes place in a new kingdom of hidden treasure, balloon flights and spaceship rides. Meeting new characters along the way, such as the Hungry Word Beast, the Space Pirates and the mischievous “Trickies”, the monster is on a journey to find his lost spaceship. Along the way, the monster will collect gold stars which can be exchanged for fantastic prizes. As an added bonus, the game features the voice of Simon Farnaby from BBC’s Horrible
www.education-today.co.uk
Histories, and Mr Thorne from Mr. Thorne Does Phonics.
The Usborne Foundation was established by Peter Usborne, founder and managing director of Usborne Publishing, one of the world’s leading children’s book publishing companies. Peter said, “The importance of engaging children in reading from a young age is pivotal, there are countless benefits, and this is exactly what Teach Your Monster to Read taps into. We have been overwhelmed by the response that Teach Your Monster to Read received in its first year, and we hope that the second release will be equally well received. It is fun, interactive and most importantly helps children master the ability to read, both at school and at home.”
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www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/ funwithwords
October 2013
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