An outdoor gym meets the PE & Sport premium criteria perfectly, instantly providing an additional and sustainable improvement to the physical education programme.
7th July 2020
Education secretary Gavin Williamson has confirmed that primary schools will continue to receive £320 million in PE and Sport Premium during the next academic year. The grant, worth on average around £18,000 per school, helps schools to engage pupils in regular physical activity.
Mr Williamson said: “During these challenging times, it has become clearer to me than ever the importance of keeping active and how it benefits not just our physical health but also our ability to pay attention, our mood and our mental health too.
An outdoor gym meets the PE and Sport premium criteria perfectly. It instantly provides schools with an additional and sustainable improvement to the quality of their physical education programme, physical activity and sport offering.
We have carried out extensive research amongst primary schools where both pupils and teachers agreed that the least active children were engaged, sports clubs and activities and holiday clubs were enriched and physical activity became embedded into the school day.
David Harris, Headteacher at Ravenscote Juniors told us: “There was a mass of excitement when the outdoor gym was first installed, all the children wanted to go on it. And still now at break time and lunch time, there is never a piece that is not being used. They absolutely love it. We’re seeing children that at break times might have sat around are now queuing up to get active, which is great.”
The PE and Sport Premium is aimed at providing funding to enable a primary school to offer a solution which encourages all children of every ability to get involved. Any solution needs to be sustainable and build on the capacity and capability within a school to ensure that improvements made now will benefit pupils joining the school in future years to come.
Head of Cowley St Lawrence Primary School, who had their outdoor gym formally opened by Boris Johnson, last year, explained how their Fresh Air Fitness outdoor gym had done just that and explained: “It's been a really easy process and the equipment itself is very good. The children will enjoy it for years to come”. He added “If another school were looking to make a similar purchase, I would definitely recommend Fresh Air Fitness. The equipment is very good for promoting high levels of fitness, it’s something enjoyable for the children and in a time when obesity is on the rise, it’s certainly something that I think other people should consider.” This was echoed by Mr McAuley, Director of Sport at the school who said: “It makes the playground look really exciting. I would recommend Fresh Air Fitness gyms to anyone”.
Since 2013, when we launched our children’s range, we have seen the amazing impact access to an outdoor gym has had on school life. Teachers have told us that concentration levels in class are up. Pupils have told us that exercise makes them feel ‘happy’. Our primary school survey reported that “85% of children said they had done more exercise following the outdoor gym installation” and “97% said they enjoyed using their outdoor gym.”
As part of our mission to get everyone outdoors and enjoying the benefits of an outdoor gym, we regularly update our promotions and currently offer a promotional primary school package.
Please call the team if you would like to discuss any aspect of the benefits of installing an outdoor gym at your primary school, you can speak to one of our specialists on tel. 01483 608860. You can also browse our website to see the complete outdoor gym children’s range.
Back to all blog posts