This week The Telegraph and national press published the results of a national survey on the impact on children from the latest lockdown.
The article title is from the headline in this week’s Daily Telegraph:
The survey was commissioned by the Schools Active Movement (of which we are members and represent on the Board). It is a collection of not for profit organisations including Charities and School Sport Partnerships, and currently we are supporting moves to confirm Primary School Sport Premium funding and targeted School Sport funding, such as School Games, alongside a longer term national strategy for spending on children’s health and wellbeing.
The SAM survey was only open for one week and 86 Manchester Schools completed it (Head, SLT or PE Leads), 428 Greater Manchester schools and 2,647 completed it nationally.
Here are the MANCHESTER results. National comparisons will follow.
Survey Completed by 86 schools- Primary 64%, Secondary 26%, Special 8%, Through 2%
Thinking about your pupil’s physical fitness; is it:
| A lot worse than before Lockdown | *19% |
| Worse than before Lockdown | *71% |
| The same as before Lockdown | 9% |
| Better than before Lockdown | 0% |
| A lot better than before Lockdown | 1% |
*90% (NINETY!!) of Manchester Schools report a decline in fitness. (National is 84%)
This statistic is particularly worrying and also fits with our own findings since schools returned to full opening.
Pupils have put on excessive body weight during lockdown
| Strongly agree | *15% |
| Agree | *58% |
| Disagree | 10% |
| Strongly Disagree | 15% |
| Don’t Know | 1% |
*73% of Manchester schools report pupils putting on excessive body weight (National is 66%)
The Fundamental Movement Skills of Pupils are:
| A lot worse than before Lockdown | *8% |
| Worse than before Lockdown | *62% |
| The same as before Lockdown | 27% |
| Better than before Lockdown | 0% |
| A lot better than before Lockdown | 3% |
*70% of Manchester schools report movement skills are worse (National is 67%)
Thinking about your pupil’s Physical Activity levels: are they doing
| A lot less than before Lockdown | 22% |
| A little less than before Lockdown | 41% |
| The same as before Lockdown | 17% |
| A little more than before Lockdown | 16% |
| A lot more than before Lockdown | 3% |
Pupil general wellbeing is:
| A lot less than before Lockdown | *5% |
| A little less than before Lockdown | *51% |
| The same as before Lockdown | 38% |
| A little more than before Lockdown | 3% |
| A lot more than before Lockdown | 2% |
*56% of Manchester Schools reported general well-being had regressed. (National is 60%)
Pupil Social Interaction is:
| A lot worse than before Lockdown | 5% |
| Worse than before Lockdown | 26% |
| The same as before Lockdown | 42% |
| Better than before Lockdown | 21% |
| A lot better than before Lockdown | 6% |
Pupil Resilience is:
| A lot worse than before Lockdown | 2% |
| Worse than before Lockdown | 53% |
| The same as before Lockdown | 30% |
| Better than before Lockdown | 12% |
| A lot better than before Lockdown | 2% |
Here are some of the things that Manchester Schools’ PE Association as a Charity are doing to support Manchester schools and young people:
- Programme of Covid secure events and leadership opportunities over the summer term.
- Sharing the findings to the Manchester schools and partner network.
- Identifying which schools had ‘positive’ results in the survey, and looking to see if they have anything we can learn from.
- Embedding ‘physical and mental health & wellbeing’ events programme into everything we do, as this has been cited as one of the positives by our schools.
- Developing our offer and support to meet the changing needs in schools.
- Providing regular Covid response updates with funding/resources/opportunities for schools to access.
We do hope that the information above is of value to you and would be more than happy to discuss or share further as appropriate.
If you have any questions, please contact us.
#TeamManchester
Christine Bland, Paul Schofield, Doug Martin, Simon Jones
