Despite the well-recognized benefits of physical activity (PA), 80% of European children do not meet recommended guidelines of at least 60 minutes of daily PA (Tremblay et al, 2016). A recent report stated that PA promotion among children in 49 countries was a ‘serious worldwide and European concern’ (Aubert et al. 2018). In response to this, the World Health Organization (WHO) highlighted school-based programs as a ‘best investment’ for PA promotion among children (GAPPA & ISPAH 2011). The PA strategy for the WHO European Region (2016-25) and the Global Action Plan on PA (2018-30) (WHO, 2016; 2018) both highlight the need to strengthen the training of education professionals while creating school environments that encourage children to be physically active. Schools present the only setting where children of all social, cultural and economic backgrounds can be supported to engage in PA for an extended period of time (Naylor et al 2009). Unfortunately, children spend most of the school day being sedentary (Holt et al, 2013); thus, classroom time consistently contributes to sedentary behaviours (Bailey, 2012). Schools are dynamic, complex systems where the core business is learning (McQueen et al, 2007). Therefore, it is exceedingly difficult to develop school-based PA programs that teachers support. Among the many reasons for this are competing demands between time for academic pursuits versus time spent in PA. Physically active learning (PAL) was designed to address this ‘tug-of-war’ between competing priorities. PAL is a pedagogical approach where pupils are physically active while learning academic content (Bartholomew et al, 2011). Although a young science, PAL has received widespread attention as it produces consistent increases in PA levels with a neutral or positive effect on academic performance (Norris et al 2015; Martin and Murtagh 2017; Daly-Smith et al, 2018; Singh et al, 2018). Moreover, unlike other school-based PA interventions (e.g. recess), PAL benefits all demographic subgroups (Bartholomew et al, 2018). The primary challenge for any school-based programme is how to achieve high levels of adherence and compliance from teachers and other school stakeholders. A reason for this could be that programmes are often developed and implemented using researcher-led push approaches that rarely involve teachers (Rutten et al, 2017). As a result, many teachers lack the capability, opportunity and motivation to embrace PAL (COM-B, Michie et al, 2011; Quarmby et al, 2018). To address this issue and ensure sustainable practice, high-quality open access PAL teacher training programmes are required. To achieve this, programmes should be created in cooperation with teachers (Norris et al, 2015). To recognize teachers as pivotal partners at the forefront of realizing this vision, we established a six-nation partnership, ACTivate. The main objective of ACTivate is to co-create, with teachers and other school stakeholders, an innovative European-wide open access PAL education programme, web portal and community of practice (CoP, see concept map, appendix). ACTivate consortium partners; Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL, Lead organisation), Leeds Beckett University (LBU, UK), LIKES (Finland), Amsterdam UMCA (UMCA, Netherlands), University College Denmark (UCD), University of Porto (Porto, Portugal). Partners have substantial skills and experience to design and deliver the six intellectual outputs: 1) report: core competencies for PAL teacher training and implementation programmes 2) report: outcome measures of importance to teachers 3) an evidence-informed European PAL student and qualified teacher curriculum 4) an open-access web portal and CoP to facilitate PAL adoption and implementation practice 5) two e-learning courses (e.g. MOOCs, videos) to enhance i) student, and ii) qualified teachers’ PAL capability, opportunity and motivation 6) report: pilot the feasibility of the ACTivate online platform and e-learning courses The six intellectual outputs in ACTivate will facilitate the following (long-term) results, Increase the number of teacher training organisations across Europe that incorporate PAL within teacher training curriculums Enhance the quality of PAL training for student teachers Enhance the quality of PAL qualified teacher training CPD courses Impact on the future development of teacher standards and training curriculums Increase primary school teachers’ capability, opportunity and motivation to adopt and implement PAL Increase the proportion of teachers implementing PAL and the frequency of delivery Create school environments that facilitate and activate the adoption and implementation of PA Increase in the size and depth of PAL research networks Furthermore, pupils will be the end beneficiaries of the ACTivate project in the form of increased lesson time and school-based PA, increased enjoyment of academic lessons, and improved classroom behaviour and time on task.
The main objective of ACTivate was to co-create, with teachers and other school stakeholders, an innovative European-wide PAL teacher training curriculum, open access PAL education programme, web portal and community of practice. As a result, this would; - Increase the number of teacher training organisations across Europe that incorporate PAL with teacher training curriculums. - Enhance the quality of PAL training for students and qualified teachers, impacting the future development of teacher training standards. - Increase primary school teacher’s capability, opportunity and motivation to adopt and implement PAL. - Increase the frequency of the use of PAL and create school environments that facilitate and activate the adoption and implementation of PAL. - Increase the frequency and size of PAL research networks.
ACTivate was developed to address high levels of childhood inactivity across Europe. While schools are seen as a best investment for physical activity (PA), previous initiatives have failed to lead to impactful and sustainable effects on children’s PA levels. Within school time, academic lessons are the least active period within a child’s day. While research shows beneficial effects of integrating PA with learning (physically active learning, PAL) on academic performance, classroom engagement and physical health, there is limited understanding on the competencies required to support all teachers and schools to embrace PAL. The ACTivate consortium addressed this knowledge-practice gap by identifying the core competencies required by teachers to be effective PAL practitioners, developing a freely available PAL teacher training curriculum to support teacher training organisations to develop effective PAL courses, creating two open access PAL teacher training e-learning courses, housed on a web platform (www.activateyourclass.eu) and evaluating the initial acceptability and feasibility of the courses. Three multiplier events built a community of practice, sharing learning with policymakers, practitioners and researchers.