Getting pro-active about inactivity

Children’s physical activity is paramount to the health of the nation. Next month, not‑for-profit health body ukactive will merge with Compass, the association representing children’s activity providers. Compass and ukactive began discussions regarding a collaboration in April 2013 and the reasons and rationale behind the partnership are just as strong now as they were then.
   
Firstly, it is worth reminding ourselves of both organisations. The 25 year old, not‑for‑profit health body ukactive is focused on turning the tide of inactivity across the UK. Members and partners range from Fitness First, Asda, local authorities, walking groups and even one-man-band activity providers. All told, the organisation counts 4,500 members and many more partners all united by the common aim of turning the tide of inactivity.
   
Compass has a much shorter history but quickly made great strides. Its members and founders represent the leading providers of children’s activity, who deliver both within schools as part of curriculum and non‑curriculum provision. Founding members include Fit for Sport, Sports Leaders UK and Premier Sport. The overall membership delivers children’s activity in over 7,500 schools and community locations.
   
What separates both organisations from existing partners within children’s sport, and what joins them together is that they both have a committed focus on activity and the most inactive children.
   
Significant time and effort is committed to debating the hours of curriculum sport, the role of a teacher against an external professional, and our next generation of athletes. All of these are worthy issues, however we can often lose sight of the fact that children are becoming more inactive and as a consequence are encountering a range of chronic diseases, ultimately starting on a road to premature mortality.

Developing programmes
We know that roughly nine per cent of children enter primary school as overweight or obese but that the number rises to 18 per cent by the time they leave. The simple truth is that, for the first time in history, we have a generation of children who are less fit than their parents.
   
This is the issue we must tackle, and therefore we must focus on supporting children to be active through whatever means. Not all children will grow up to be sportsmen and women, and a traditional sporting offer can risk disengaging children at an early age. So we need to develop programmes that encourage even the least active children, those that are picked last and shy away from team sports.
   
This is the rationale behind the merger of ukactive and Compass. For ukactive has long held this mission for the adult population and Compass shares the mission for children.
   
The partnership is helped by an overlapping set of members and partners. Some of ukactive’s most traditional members have recently developed unique programmes and activities for children. Take Virgin Active’s Active Inspiration programme for example, which involves exercise professionals supporting activity in schools whilst some of the finest facilities are opened to schools.

Holistic ways to increase activity
In a diverse commissioning landscape, local authorities are starting to look at holistic methods for active communities, often grouping leisure, planning and public health into one wellbeing hub. That means leisure providers will, in future, more often be tasked with working with schools or developing programmes for special populations. Providers are one step ahead of this and have been re-imagining their offer to suit an updated portfolio, but as ever, it requires a framework in which operators can deliver services which is mindful of things like appropriate skills and qualifications, and can communicate these effectively with commissioners, head teachers and Ofsted.

What will a partnership mean?
The ukactive and Compass alliance will operate under ukactive’s brand umbrella and be accessible from www.ukactive.org.uk.

From April 2015, a section of ukactive’s governance committee will focus solely on children’s inactivity.
   
Our overall mission is to ensure every child understands the importance of, and has the opportunity to, lead an active lifestyle. In order to achieve this we will focus on several areas.
   
Firstly, we will undertake research to identify the best means of increasing children’s activity. For all of the debate and scrutiny aimed at children’s physical education, very little time is spent asking why children are becoming more inactive or more importantly evaluating the impact of programmes. We will aim to arm head teachers with the evidence in order to base their decisions on, in effect ensuring they know how best to increase activity levels amongst their most inactive students.

We are already making great strides in this area. The ukactive Research Institute is undertaking an evaluation of a physical literacy programme in partnership with Buckinghamshire County Council which aims to increase activity levels through lesson planning and nuanced teacher training. The Institute is also evaluating the effectiveness of the Engage to Compete programme which focuses on educating children on basic activity skills before ever picking up a ball or joining a team.
   
Secondly, we will increase the data and insight available regarding children’s activity. At ukactive we have published the levels of adult inactivity in every local authority alongside the associated costs of inactivity, investment made to tackle these levels and the available evidence based programmes. Despite the importance of children’s inactivity we do not have access to the same insight.
   
The All Party Parliamentary Group for Smoking has stated that the significant progress achieved in tackling smoking across the UK would have been impossible without clear empirical evidence on the prevalence of smoking and the effectiveness of methods to tackle smoking. We are attempting to tackle a similar issue without any insight.
   
Without evidence and insight, calls for greater investment and commitments will either fall on deaf ears or simply lack effectiveness. So we will identify children’s inactivity levels through two means. We will ensure that all of our members delivering children’s activity use an online benchmarking system that anonymously collates the scale of their delivery. Our Research Institute is also working with ten schools and hundreds of students in order to assess the feasibility of cardiorespiratory fitness measurements within schools.
   
Thirdly, there has been a definite rise in the number of providers delivering children’s activity which, if delivered in a coordinated fashion, can achieve great things. However, providers must ensure that clear standards and quality are guaranteed throughout all aspects of delivery.

There is a plethora of kite marks, assessment organisations, and guidance documents already in circulation so rest assured we will not confuse the market any further. Rather we will work with stakeholders to ensure clear guidance exists on how an external professional can and should deliver children’s activity whether in a school, leisure centre or town hall.
   
Lastly, children’s activity is currently a disparate sector, with tens of thousands of schools, teachers and thousands of independent sports coaches approaching schools every day. Facilitating collective action across the sector is almost impossible.

Shifting national focus
However, through ukactive and Compass we have the ability to deliver collective action. Providers such as Fit For Sport support hundreds of schools whilst leisure operators run over 3,000 local leisure facilities available to support their local schools. We can coordinate action across potentially thousands of communities, where we celebrate the fun of activity and fitness for children.
   
This will start with programmes such as the second National Fitness Day, in September 2015, where we will ensure thousands of organisations open their facilities to run activity classes for children. All of these activities will be in order to shift a national focus onto children’s inactivity. Regardless of the curriculum commitment, the mode of delivery, or the performance of particular sport, we need to ensure that children are physically active.    

Creating an active generation of children, will stem the rise of chronic conditions, reduce the burden on our public health systems, increase participation in school sport and most importantly improve the quality of life enjoyed by numerous children.

Further information
www.ukactive.org.uk
info@ukactive.org.uk