Seventy-nine per cent of children do not meet recommended fitness levels

Activity providers Fit For Sport has revealed that 79 per cent of pupils measured through their Healthy Active Schools System (HASS) are failing to meet the recommended fitness levels for their age.

Dean Horridge, CEO and Founder of Fit For Sport, said: “The fact that only 21 per cent of children are meeting recommended fitness levels comes as no surprise to us given the current inactivity crisis that we find ourselves in. We must change the way in which we are educating children through physical activity or else we’ll continue to fight a losing battle. There’s too much focus on diet and too little on regular exercise.”

“A couple of hours of outdated PE lessons a week are not enough to get children engaged. The key is, and always will be, daily engagement in fun and varied physical activity. After all, government guidelines state that 30 minutes of daily physical activity must be carried out during school.”

“Furthermore, without measurement how will we ever know if this new investment is working? Physical activity at school must be taken as seriously as Maths and English otherwise obesity rates will continue to soar.”

HASS allows schools to record, monitor and evaluate their pupils’ physical activity levels. The free online portal also ensures that schools can easily track their PE and Sport Premium spend, level 1 and 2 competition and individual pupils’ swimming milestones.

To measure the fitness levels of the 40,000 children registered on the HASS, Fit For Sport conduct a simple physical activity test, otherwise known as the Activity Challenge, which requires a combination of skill and physical fitness, including stamina, agility and coordination.