Breakfast movers

Breakfast Movers This Breakfast Movers Essential Guide complements the Extra Time resource pack Breakfast Club Plus (see ‘Resources’). It offers advice about setting up and running a ‘Breakfast Movers’ club, where members take part in physical activity in addition to enjoying a healthy breakfast. Why include physical activities in your breakfast club Breakfast clubs play a key role in extending learning opportunities, tackling childhood obesity, helping schools deliver the ‘8 to 6 core offer’, developing healthier schools, and so on. Including physical activity in your breakfast club can, additionally: • help pupils to understand how eating nutritious food and doing exercise can help them to achieve a good energy balance • widen pupils’ interest in, and knowledge of, different types of physical activities • increase pupils‘ confidence, self-esteem and well-being, through learning new skills and participating in new activities. Schools need to find ways to address the five outcomes for children outlined in Every child matters, which are now an integral part of the Ofsted inspection framework. A breakfast club that includes physical activity opportunities for its members can address at least three of the outcomes: • being healthy • enjoying and achieving • staying safe. Additional outcomes can be targeted, depending on how the breakfast club is set up – for example, building a mentoring scheme into the club can lead to the members being recognised for ‘making a positive contribution’ to their community. How to include physical activities in your breakfast club You will need to consider a number of issues when planning to introduce physical activities into your breakfast club – for instance: the type of activity to run (see opposite for some ‘tried and tested ideas’); where and when to hold it; which pupils to include; who will run the sessions; how to sustain the activity; and how to maintain pupils’ interest. Top tips! • Find out what physical activities already happen in your school and local area, particularly before school, and offer something different. • Find out if your school is a Sports College and/or is part of a School Sport Partnership – these focus on improving PE and sport within and beyond the curriculum (see ‘Resources’). Where will the physical activities happen? Wherever you set up your club, you will need to make the physical activity area safe and inclusive. There may be some pupils who need extra encouragement to take part, so the space you choose will need to be as non-threatening and inviting as possible. If you plan to mark off an area within the main breakfast club room for the physical activities, make sure all the members know what happens in that section and how they can join in. You should also make sure that the activity does not disturb the rest of the breakfast club. When will the activities take place? What should come first – the breakfast or the activity – will depend on the type of physical activities you are offering, whether the children will need or want to eat something before exercising, and so on. Below are three examples of how co-ordinators have organised physical activities in their clubs. Football training A primary school in Southend-on-Sea has developed links with the community section of a local football club. One of the coaches runs an inclusive training session at the club every Friday. The children who take part in football training are offered breakfast after the session. They train from 7.45am and, while the other club members eat breakfast and do other activities, the footballers train in the hall next door. The football session is non-competitive and involves pupils from Years 1 to 6. The older members are encouraged to support and help the younger members of the club. Yoga breakfast All the members of a breakfast club at a primary school near Cardiff take part in a yoga class before the start of the main breakfast club. Running club A secondary school in Egham, Surrey, operates a running club, where the members run around the nearby area in pairs and volunteers/club staff act as marshals at a number of points along the route. The club operates once a week and, after the run, everyone comes back to eat a healthy breakfast in the school’s common room. Who will the physical activities be for? When you plan your Breakfast Movers club, you need to be clear about who it is for. Start by thinking about who already attends the breakfast club, who doesn’t, and who you want to target, for instance: • Are there other pupils who will be attracted to the breakfast club if you include a physical activity? • Do you want to focus on a particular group of children at first, and open the physical activities to everyone else later on? Remember to send out a clear message to the pupils you are targeting that they can all take part in the physical activities, whatever their age and whatever their level. Top tip! The English Federation of Disability Sport and the Youth Sport Trust’s TOP Sportsability programme (see ‘Resources’) can offer free training and advice on effectively including all children and young people in your club. Who will run the physical activities? Who will run your physical activity sessions will depend on the age of the young people, the activities you plan to offer, and so on. Remember, the person leading the sessions doesn’t have to be a qualified sports teacher. Consider inviting local professionals to run a guest session, or involving staff from your local leisure centre or a freelance tutor. You could also send a letter home to parents/carers asking if any of them have sports or fitness teaching qualifications. Alternatively, talk to students at local secondary schools, colleges and universities. Some may be studying for a coaching award and may be prepared to donate their time to run the sessions, particularly if they can gain accreditation or a reference for the work they do. Top tip! The Sports Development team within your local authority will also be able to advise you on people who might deliver your physical activity sessions. What about health and safety? Health and safety information is often specific to a local authority or school. Before setting up a Breakfast Movers club, you will need to do the following: • consult the senior management team about health and safety procedures, insurance, police checks, and so on • agree a procedure detailing what to do and who is responsible for each action, should an accident or injury occur • ensure that a qualified first-aider works at the club, or, at the very least, on the school site, and that they can be contacted easily • send out consent forms to parents/carers for the young people to be able to take part in the activities. Who else needs to be involved? Start by talking to pupils, parents/carers and senior school managers about your ideas for introducing physical activities into the breakfast club. Once your plans are in place, involve the members in choosing what activities to have, designing a club logo, deciding on ground rules for the club, and so on. Ask those responsible for the PE equipment in your school if you can borrow their footballs, hula hoops, indoor hockey sticks, balls, skipping ropes, cones, bean bags, and so on. Be clear about what equipment you can use, and when and where it needs to be replaced. Perhaps nominate some Year 6 members as equipment monitors. If you only have limited space and facilities available, consider forming a partnership with your local leisure centre or with other larger schools in the area. Work out a schedule together that enables the Breakfast Movers club to use your partners’ swimming pool, badminton courts and other facilities. Top tips! • Start your Breakfast Movers club with a flourish, by advertising the club’s opening to everyone in the school. • Display around the school a countdown of days until the first physical activity. Tried and tested ideas Free and structured play Whether it’s hopscotch or happy families, climbing frames or crocodiles, play offers numerous health and social benefits for children. So, create a play space for members within your breakfast club area. Stretch! Do a few simple stretches with the pupils at the beginning of the club session. Encourage deep breaths in sequence with the stretches. Perhaps some of the older members could lead the physical activity session each week. Drama games Walking and jogging around the room with stop, turn, and start directions can be a simple yet effective warm-up game. KidTribe Hoop-hop Hula-hooping is back – but this time members can do it to hip hop music. Call ContinYou on 020 8709 9900 to find out more about KidTribe Hoop-hop. Circus skills Try and find a few soft juggling sticks, or some poi. Perhaps the club members could even make their own. (Visit www.worldartswest.org/plm/guide/activitypages/artconstruct/poi.shtml for instructions on making a simple pair of poi.) Each activity is great for hand–eye co-ordination and general arm strength – as well as being brilliant brain-gym tools. Dance If you have a CD player or TV, put on club members’ favourite numbers or MTV and encourage them to dance for twenty minutes at the start of the session. Games From the traditional (football, hockey, basketball, golf, and so on) to unique games children make up themselves, the possibilities of games you could organise are endless. Yoga/Pilates/Tai Chi A local yoga teacher may be happy to run a yoga session once or twice a week in the club. If not, there are some basic yoga elements that most people can lead. The benefits include flexibility, help with anger management, breath control and increased concentration. Walking and running Simply mark out a route with bollards or cones, or organise a sponsored club members’ walk – either to raise funds for the club or another charitable cause. Skipping It’s simple yet effective. Whatever way your members fancy it – in groups, in pairs or individually – skipping is great exercise. Keep fit Back to basics works when it comes to physical activity. Leg raises, bottom walking and star jumps never lose their effectiveness as ways to get young people active. Top tips! • Keep the club informal and non-threatening. • Consider when the physical activity should happen, and how to organise it around the breakfast and other activities taking place. • Ensure that the level of physical exertion is suitable for the group. • Regularly change the activities on offer to ensure that they appeal to as many members as possible. • Consider starting the session with simple co-ordination and flexibility exercises and ending with an activity to develop skills or team games. • Consult the members, try to implement their ideas, and feed back to them so they know that they have a real stake in the club. • Publicise and keep the club exciting and enjoyable so that word of mouth ‘sells’ it and it retains a high profile. • Organise celebration events so that the club and its members receive recognition • Aim to have a balance between informal activities and more competitive, formal games. • Have a reward system for attendance, and follow up non-attendance individually so that the members know that you are concerned about them. • Contact your local authority’s PE manager for advice on the TOPs programme, which can supply equipment (see ‘Resources’). Shout about what you are doing Much of ContinYou’s work involves collecting the good practice that happens in clubs and passing it on to others. Let us know what physical activities you offer your breakfast club members, what food you serve, how you are funded, how many members you have, and so on. Just phone 020 8709 9926 and ask for a questionnaire to fill in and send back to us, telling us what you do. You can also send us photos and press cuttings – we’ll find it all useful. Please invite us to your club and, if you have a club newsletter, please add us to your circulation list – you can email the newsletter to info@continyou.org.uk or post a copy to ContinYou at the address overleaf. Resources – where to go to find out more Publications Breakfast Club Plus (ContinYou, 2005) A guide to setting up your own breakfast club and keeping it going. Download it from: www.continyou.org.uk or for a hard copy, contact Fiona Joseph at fiona.joseph@continyou.org.uk or call 020 8709 9926 Websites • Breakfast Club Plus: www.breakfastclubplus.org.uk • British Heart Foundation: www.bhfactive.org.uk • British Rope Skipping Association: www.brsa.org.uk • Children’s Yoga: www.childrensyoga.com • English Federation of Disability Sport: www.efds.net • Health Challenge Wales: www.healthchallenge.wales.gov.uk • Kid Premiership (One 17 Education): www.kidpremiership.com • LifeBytes: www.lifebytes.gov.uk • Sports Council for Wales: www.sports-council-wales.co.uk • Sport England: www.sportengland.org.uk • Sports Leaders UK: www.sportsleaders.org • Sport Scotland: www.sportscotland.org.uk • The Walking Bus Scheme: www.walkingbus.org • Wired for Health: www.wiredforhealth.gov.uk: • The Youth Sport Trust (Sports Colleges and School Sport Partnerships; Sportsability): www.youthsporttrust.org • The Youth Sport Trust (TOP Trainers’ Club): www.toptrainersclub.org.uk More information about these and other useful resources will be available to online members of Breakfast Club Plus from January 2006. Acknowledgements Since 1998 Kellogg’s has provided significant support to ContinYou’s development of nationwide Breakfast club initiatives. These have included an initial national award scheme, Breakfast Club Plus and this Breakfast Movers Essential Guide. Kellogg’s annual National Breakfast Week takes place in September. It forms part of Kellogg’s ongoing commitment to promote the benefits of physical activities and having a good breakfast. Published by ContinYou 17 Old Ford Road London E2 9PJ Tel: 020 8709 9900 Fax: 020 8709 9933 Email: info@continyou.org.uk Website: www.continyou.org.uk Copyright © ContinYou 2005 Registered charity no: 1097596