This objective explored the impact of a school becoming an active education setting on: i) the Vision for Sport and Sport Wales Strategy; ii) physical activity levels; and iii) educational priorities including attendance. To note, given the different timelines the programme has been implemented in different schools, the impact across each of the topics of interest will vary, and, for some schools, the impact (if any) will be realised in coming months and years.
Sport Wales Strategy
Within Sport Wales’ Strategy, one strategic intent is “to ensure everyone has the opportunity to be active through sport”, and a key area they sought to do was to “focus on partners in education and community settings”. Through commissioning the AEBSD programme into schools, Sport Wales are achieving their strategic intent - a school becoming an active education setting means they are helping to ensure everyone has access to sport. This is in line with the WHO Global Action Plan on Physical Activity 2018-2030, where a recommendation for creating active environments is to strengthen access to sports amenities by all people. Further work will involve tracking what percentage of school facilities are available for public use; an appetite among schools is evidenced in this pilot project, with schools seeking to consult with the wider communities and putting infrastructure in place to enable public access, independent of school staff.
The demographics of the schools taking part in the pilot highlighted that many were situated in some challenging areas in Wales. This is evidenced by some schools reporting a target of decreasing anti-social behaviour and stating that the police have reported a reduction in crime in a specific school. Providing opportunities to children and young people in clean, safe, and stimulating environments is critical. Work is underway in Wales to conduct an audit of the use of physical activity as a crime prevention tool across police forces in Wales. It will be important to put measures in place to track the positive impact the creation of active education settings has on local crime statistics.
Physical activity levels
Pupils were asked, through a survey, whether their physical activity levels had changed because of attending the AEBSD sessions. Of the children who completed the survey, the majority reported an increase, and a small proportion reported no change. It is important to note that no change should not be perceived as a negative outcome as pupils may therefore be maintaining their current levels, which are known to decrease with age, and some children may have already be meeting, or exceeding, physical activity guidelines. However, due to the low completion number, these findings must be interpreted with caution. Future delivery of the programme should seek to include a series of physical activity measures. Moreover, the provision of a wider variety of sporting activities was acknowledged and valued by pupils. The quick sign-up for sessions was a positive. Within and from the sessions, staff viewed progress in pupil’s physical skills and a keenness to engage in volunteering from participating pupils.
Schools educational priorities
Schools reported improvements in pupils’ behaviour, confidence, self-esteem, and resilience, along with crosscurriculum and collaboration benefits. For example, a positive impact on pupil behaviour in school was reflected in more than half of the monthly learning logs completed by schools. In addition, the AEBSD sessions provided an outlet to help pupils manage their emotions and learn self-control. Promisingly, a top reason for schools seeking to become an active education setting was to ‘develop pupils’ knowledge and understanding of being physically active’. With a new area of learning and experience within the new curriculum in Wales focusing on health and wellbeing, the positive progress of the schools would strive towards achieving the objective of this area of learning. There is also a need to develop children as agents of their own health and develop health literacy, for individual and societal purposes (Sorbring & Luczynski, 2019). Schools and local authorities should be encouraged to capture flourishing outcomes (e.g. personal development) of children’s progression learning and development towards achieving education priorities, and not only traditional measures (e.g. attendance).