Ministers encourage schools to introduce daily exercise regime. Scotland’s education and health ministers are calling on all primary schools to introduce a daily mile exercise programme to boost children’s health and fitness.
With the country having some of the worst obesity rates in Europe, Cabinet Secretary for Education Angela Constance and Health Secretary Shona Robison have vowed to write to every primary head teacher in the country urging them to launch a daily physical exercise scheme similar to that introduced in St Ninian’s in Stirling where children walk or run a mile a day.
The move comes just days after the school’s award-winning head teacher called on the Scottish Government to extend the scheme across the country.
For three and a half years, former head teacher Elaine Wyllie, 60, who retired last month, always made sure that all pupils at St Ninian’s primary run the daily mile around its grounds each day.
They do so at random times during the day, apparently happily, and despite the rise in childhood obesity, none of the children at the school are overweight.
The daily mile has done so much to improve the children’s fitness, behaviour and concentration in lessons that scores of nursery and primary schools across the UK have already followed suit, getting pupils to get up from their desks and take 15 minutes to walk or run round the school or local park.
