The Importance of Movement

As the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy becomes closer to moving into our multi-million pound Maritime House Campus, I am using this time to reflect. Tonight, I have been reflecting on the importance of movement in learning spaces.

The question of “is sitting the next smoking” has been raised by many health experts in the past few months. Diabetes and heart disease are known to be connected to an inactive lifestyle, however, most of this attention has been focused on adult office workers and the negative health impact of sitting at work all day. But, if our waistlines and even our longevity are connected to how active we are each day, is it not important to teach our children how to be more active, from an early age?

With this in mind, there is a strong argument to create learning spaces that encourage movement. After all, a traditional model of thirty children sat at tables in row surely does nothing to support movement?

I love these examples of movement in Learning Spaces -

Building on this, Dr Mark Benden from Texas A&M University has been writing in the Conversation. He has been researching the impact of getting children in class to spend more time on their feet. His article (available by clicking here) makes for more interesting reading in the context of our work at the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy.