Over the past few years the Be Active team at the Health Improvement Commission has worked very closely with staff and pupils at Guernsey primary Schools to find out more about the activity levels of pupils.
The Chief Medical Officer Physical Activity guidelines for children and young people (5-18 years) are that All children and young people should engage in moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity for at least 60 minutes and up to several hours every day.
It is also recommended that children are active for at least 30 minutes every day when at school.
To help schools understand when and by how much children and young people are active we have established our Moki Trial across all primary Schools in the Bailiwick.
We will be inviting pupils to wear a fitness tracker at school over a week. Moki Fitness Tracker is a tracker that has been specifically designed for use in schools. The tracker is faceless so pupils cannot see how many steps that they have taken.
Pupils will bring the Moki home at the end of each school day – They can keep them on but try to remember not to wear the moki when they go Swimming.
The tracker is worn on the wrist - The results are anonymous but will tell us how much activity the young people are doing (they do not track the wearer’s location).
The data that is collected is simply the steps and levels of moderate to vigorous activity that is recorded on each tracker. Each school will receive a school-level summary of pupil activity.
The results will show: ·
Levels of activity per school day (children are meant to be active for at least 30 minutes per day at school). ·
We can map activities across the school Day – so they can see how active they are during breaks. ·
We can also measure activity out of school and, crucially, on trips to and from school. ·
The results can be analysed by gender.
Each class can also receive a summary so that they can see the differences on a pupil-by-pupil basis.
We have undertaken the trials in four schools, and they have been useful for senior leaders and at class level and have impacted on practice.
The children receive the Moki on the Tuesday, and we collect again on Friday.
Examples of the findings:
