This July at the pre-congress seminar the Early Years SIG will be focusing on children’s physical activity recommendations.
Physical activity has been defined in numerous ways it is however a “complex behaviour variable” which can vary “from day to day, in intensity, frequency, and duration and consists of both unavoidable activity and variable activity” (Winsley and Armstrong, 2005). So we have set ourselves an interesting challenge to share and compare across countries what happens in each location. How is physical activity measured? Who is measuring it? Why are they measuring it? It is recognised that physical activity is most difficult to measure in children especially young children as they are often sporadic in their movements and their intensity levels! Therefore, our aim of the session is to learn from each other, how do we teach our young children to understand what is physical activity? Why it should be important to our young children them? And how it will inform their life long choices that could help their health in later life.
We will also be critically evaluate the similarities and differences and to examine what works effectively and why. The purpose of the focus of our international comparison to consider if there is a need for a global statement on children’s physical activity levels and what the impact schools, settings, communities, families, teachers and practitioners has on developing and teaching children about their own physical activity levels from the earliest of ages. Our focus in terms of ages is between 0 – 8 and we welcome you to join us in our evaluation and critique. Currently we have contributions from Finland, Norway, Estonia, Germany, USA, Ireland, England, with more to follow.
We will be in the Moray House School of Education at Edinburgh University, with more details of how to next to the location and precise timings to come in our next update.
If you wish to find out more please contact Arja and Kristy on:
arja.saakslahti@jyu.fi
kristy.howells@canterbury.ac.uk
