Abernethy pupils get active

Pupils from Abernethy Primary School in Nethybridge have completed their “Lets Get Active Award” as part of their annual eco week.

This award was delivered by the Highland Council’s Active Schools coordinators as part of the Curriculum for Excellence and contributing towards the health and well being outcomes through the “mini x programme “- a joint initiative with NHS Highland looking at activity and diet/nutrition.

The sessions during eco week were designed to look at types of exercise, health benefits of being active, levels of exertion, potential barriers to participation, solutions to these barriers, local opportunities for activities and current daily recommendations for children.  This was followed up by the pupils monitoring their exercise patterns for 6 weeks, aiming to do an hour a day of accumulated activity.

With the help of class teachers, parents and family the pupils worked up their hourly accumulated activities sometimes in smaller blocks of at least 10 minutes of activity.

Dawn Horsburgh, Highland Council’s Active Schools Coordinator for Grantown area said: “The children really got into the sessions and the award. The community is full of active people out and about doing activities and it’s great to see that the pupils are keen to participate too. The activities only had to be of a moderate to vigorous level. Moderate meaning getting a little out of breath and feeling a bit warmer, vigorous being hotter and more out of breath.  The activities could be built up gradually and should hopefully suit the individual, meaning it will be enjoyable and things they can keep doing throughout their lives.”
 
Rona Grant P6 said: “It was good fun to keep fit.”

William Moncrieff P6 added: “It made me realise you need to try to do an hour of fitness a day……we even made our own fitness circuits.”

Jo Crane P5 said: “It made you write down what you did in the week and made you think how important it is to stay healthy”