Kids join the wrist band activity tracker study at Rosendale Primary School

BY TOBY PORTER
toby@slpmedia.co.uk

Schoolchildren were keeping an eye on how much exercise they did during the summer – with a wristwatch.

Kids are often accused of spending too much time on tablets or phones but early years pupils at Rosendale Primary School, Rosendale Road, West Dulwich, were encouraged to embrace technology to get fit.

Results from the school study reveal that – when wearing the activity tracker for a full school day – the children were active for an average of two hours and 50 minutes.

Their most active time was between noon and 1pm and the highest daily level they reached was four-and-a-quarter hours – which came towards the end of the study.

Head of sport at Rosendale School, Doug Cranston, who lead the project said: “I have been so surprised at just how responsive the children have been to this study.

“We now have empirical data on its effectiveness and going forwards hope to build on this with future year groups.”

The research was conducted thanks to a £4,450 grant from the It’s Great Out There Coalition.

Finnish children’s wear brand, Reima, provided 85 of their activity trackers for the school’s children to wear over the summer half-term.

Andrew Denton, secretary general of the It’s Great Out There Coalition, said: “We were really excited about supporting this project with the grant.

“The work that Rosendale Primary School and Reima have been doing together meets one of our key objectives of getting more young people active outdoors.

“But it is also delivering some great empirical evidence of the positive impact that initiatives like this can have.

“This is really valuable and we can use it to help persuade policymakers that they should be focusing resources on the outdoors as part of wider efforts to combat the inactivity epidemic.”