Movement in the classroom for greater connection

By Jessica Lawn Health Promotion Officer, Western Health

Increased movement is well known to have many physical health benefits, but the aim of this program was to demonstrate the emotional and cognitive benefits to help teachers’ connect movement to effective classroom management rather than just part of sport lessons or the domain of a school’s Physical Education teacher.

Recently, Western Health's Health Promotion team partnered with ACHPER Victoria to offer professional development workshops to seven primary schools with the aim to increase teacher knowledge and confidence in effectively implementing movement breaks within the classroom.

The Health Promotion officer engaged ACHPER Victoria’s Resource Coordinators to design an hour-long workshop that included not just the practical examples of a variety of brain breaks, energisers and focussing activities, but also the evidence of why movement is effective at increasing cognitive performance and can be utilised to build social cohesion and connections within the classroom.

The workshops were offered free to schools, covered by the Health Promotion team for this trial. Initially, the workshops were offered to public primary schools in terms 3 and 4 of 2023, but after struggling to engage initial interest from schools, it was opened up to private schools as well for Term 1 and 2 of 2024. Three public and four private schools ended up partaking in the workshops.

The workshops were held onsite during staff meetings at the end of the school day with all school staff encouraged to attend. The starting phase of the workshop focussed on raising energy levels after a long school day followed by building connections with colleagues before identifying links to curriculum and classroom management strategies. The workshops were incredibly successful at engaging staff with plenty of laughter and enthusiasm to try activities with their students.

“So engaging! Presenters were fun and quick in moving staff to next example and keeping staff all smiling and laughing! Definitely will see movement increase in classrooms after this session! Thank you for coming out and sharing your time and skills with us all!” – Teacher, Christ the Priest Catholic Primary School.

Staff participation in the workshops ranged from 20 to 60 staff members per school, with an estimate of over 4,000 students set to benefit from greater movement opportunities within the classroom.

Impact evaluation from this trial indicated that 98.5% of surveyed teachers felt extremely or somewhat confident to incorporate more movement into their daily teaching practices with an average score of 9.6/10 for how likely they would be to recommend this workshop to a peer.

Outcome evaluation will occur in the coming months, with planning underway for follow-up training sessions and an expansion of schools involved in the program. ACHPER Victoria have also now facilitated the workshop in other regions of Victoria with similarly positive feedback.

To learn more about our in-school workshops please click here and get in touch to arrange a session at your school.