The UAE News report: A growing obesity and inactivity crises, combined with the Covid pandemic, demonstrate in no uncertain terms that health and wellbeing are paramount, not least in children.
The impact on physical and mental health as a result of obesity are well known, as are the possible long-term and enduring complications so, making step-changes in lifestyle as early as possible becomes a universal necessity.
The negative influences of modern life have reached almost all advanced economies, including the Middle East region so action is needed from every quarter. Add to this social isolation through lockdowns and remote learning, as well as the knowledge that Covid affects the less healthy most severely, and there is a near worldwide realisation that a healthy lifestyle in a socially enhancing way, from a young age, becomes imperative.
Having experience of the same pressures in the UK, where there has been a growing obesity crises for some years within a large, multicultural population as well as the impact of Covid on society, a start-up from the UK has worked out a way to engage children from any language background by the simplest of means, in the fun and benefits of a healthy lifestyle through physical exercise.
Action Mats have designed sets of bright and colourful mats with instructions and graphics printed on them to show the children what to do, and how to do it, on each mat. Because of the simplicity of the concept, children can self-determine and self-regulate without the need for adult guidance or intervention, as well as collaborate with each other through their own endeavours.
Enabling children to determine their own activities and choices, in a positive environment is a fundamental step towards making good choices instinctively in life. It was therefore an aspiration from the start that children of all languages and none, in fact, would be able to engage with the resource.
A school in the city of Birmingham, who’s children are 100% Pakistani origin were the testing bed. The resource was found to work in both free play settings and, crucially, in structured lesson settings too. An encouraging behaviour pattern of peer support and encouragement was noticed and therefore fostered by the creation, by the developers at Action Mats, of team-challenges featuring problem-solving and tasks that required children to work together to achieve the objective. Additional elements were created to achieve this aim including jigsaw pieces, numbers and letters to widen the scope of the potential for using Action Mats.
The inclusion of letters and numbers in particular, means that literacy and numeracy can be woven into Action Mats sessions, thereby bringing the concept of physically active learning into play.
Physically active learning involves fusing movement with traditional learning activities.
Whilst the combination of movement and learning is a common approach in reception classes, where Action Mats have developed their Mini Mats range for, in most schools, seated learning dominates from Year One onwards. Lessons in a classroom setting contribute to this inactive part of the child’s day. Many children can spend up to nine hours a day sitting.
International research found that after three years of physically active learning, pupils were still more attentive following the activity than those that had not been active. Children move more when learning in an active way. In a 45-minute lesson, physically active learning can contribute an additional nine minutes more moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, when compared to a seated classroom lesson. What’s more, this contributes nearly one third of the in-school 30-minute UK school recommendation. Not only can increased physical activity benefit academic performance and physical health, it can also improve mental health.
Lesson plans are integral with each set of Action Mats to ensure that the focus of each lesson can be varied and tailored to suit the requirements of the day, the school, or the curriculum. Action Maths lessons are UK curriculum linked and cover lessons from years one to six. Action Mats from the UK is bringing its innovative resource for Primary School aged Children to GESS Dubai from 14th to 16th November and will be on Stand T31.
