Welcome to the Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs: A Guide for Schools course of the Training Tools for Healthy Schools e-learning series. In this self-paced course, there are several ways to access the training material. You may select a specific chapter or chapter section by clicking on a title. You may view the course in its entirety by simply clicking on the "play" button in the video window and then clicking "next" to proceed to the next video. Click "back" to view the previous video.
An "Active Child" icon will appear on the screen periodically to alert you to a tip for more information. You may access more information by clicking on questions or resources in the Go Further section. A full-course download is also available.
At the end of the course, you will have the opportunity to evaluate it and download a certificate of completion.
Physical education and physical activity is one of the components in the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child framework, which strives to promote lifelong healthy behaviors in young people through a coordinated effort.
This component can be addressed in schools through a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program. A Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program is a multicomponent approach by which schools and districts use all opportunities for students to be physically active, meet the nationally-recommended 60 minutes of physical activity each day, and develop the knowledge, skills, and confidence to be physically active for a lifetime.
CDC, in collaboration with SHAPE America: the Society of Health and Physical Educators, developed the Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs: A Guide for Schools to provide schools and districts with step-by-step guidance on how to develop, implement, and evaluate comprehensive physical activity programs. The purpose of going through the process of establishing a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program is to ensure sustainability of all its components.
The purpose of this training is to familiarize you with the components of a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program and the process for developing, implementing, and evaluating one. After this training, you should be able to take the next steps to begin the process of developing a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program.
The course objectives are for you to:
When youth take part in regular physical activity, it produces multiple benefits, including:
Based on guidelines issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, young people should participate in at least 60 minutes of physical activity daily. Each week, physical activities should include a mix of aerobic, muscle-strengthening, and bone-strengthening activities to achieve full health benefits.
Unfortunately, many young people are not physically active on a regular basis and fall short of these recommendations.
Schools can play a major role in affecting the overall health of young people. About 95% of the nation's youth are enrolled in schools. They typically spend six hours per day, for up to 13 years of their lives, in school.
After the family, schools are the primary institution responsible for the development of young people in the United States.
Schools are well positioned to provide time for organized and free-time physical activity for youth through a multicomponent approach that includes:
This approach is referred to as a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program.
The goals of a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program-are:
Students can accumulate the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity through the components of a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program.
Physical education is an academic subject and serves as the foundation of a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program.
As defined by SHAPE America, the essential components of a physical education include:
The Policy and Environment component of physical education refers to aspects such as:
Curriculum refers to aspects such as:
Appropriate instruction means the physical education teacher:
The Student Assessment component refers to aspects such as:
In addition to physical education, schools can offer physical activity in a variety of settings during the school day.
The main ways students can participate in physical activity during the school day are:
Before- and after-school physical activity programs offer students an opportunity to be physically active instead of waiting in a sedentary setting for the school day to begin or end. This includes opportunities such as walking and biking to school, intramural sports, or interscholastic sports.
Physical activity before and after school provides opportunities for all students to:
Staff involvement in a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program reinforces the importance of student health.
When school staff commit to good health practices, such as in an Employee Wellness Program, they can be positive role models for students and may show increased support for student participation in physical activity.
A fully comprehensive physical activity program goes beyond the school's walls to engage families and the community to be active during the school day and beyond.
Research shows that youth participation in physical activity is influenced by participation and support of parents and siblings.
In addition, community involvement allows maximum use of school and community resources and creates a connection between school and community-based physical activity opportunities.
Now that we have developed an understanding of the components for a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program, let's review.
The Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs: A Guide for Schools outlines a step-by-step process for establishing, implementing, and evaluating a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program and also provides many tools and templates that you can use.
Let's go through each step so that you will be prepared to begin working on your own Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program.
You can create a Physical Activity Team from members of an existing School Health Council. The team should represent a diverse group of education and health professionals and serve in an advisory and decision-making capacity to establish, implement, and evaluate a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program.
From this team, a Physical Activity Leader should be selected. A physical education teacher is recommended for this role.
The Physical Activity Leader is responsible for:
Next, as a team, conduct an assessment of existing physical activity policies, programs, and practices in your school.
CDC's School Health Index is an evidence-based assessment and planning tool that can be used to identify strengths and weaknesses in your current school environment. This will help develop goals, objectives, and activities for your physical activity program.
You may find that the school has a number of physical activity opportunities in place, but efforts aren't coordinated to maximize physical activity opportunities and staff time to plan evaluation. In this situation, the opportunity to coordinate existing efforts may be the first priority for the team.
After reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of existing physical activity program policies, practices, and activities in your school, the next steps are to create a vision and set goals and objectives for the development, implementation, and evaluation of a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program.
First, develop a Vision Statement. The Vision Statement is a declaration of a shared sense of purpose and provides a framework for establishing goals, objectives, and activities. Essentially, describe in brief terms what you hope to achieve by having a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program for your school.
Goals and objectives provide a solid foundation to help plan and guide your Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program. Without well written goals and objectives, it is difficult to measure your progress in implementing your program and the impact it is having on students.
Goals help to establish the overall direction for and focus of a program, define the scope of what the program should achieve, and serve as the foundation for developing program objectives.
Goals should be simple and concise and should include two basic components:
Objectives are statements that describe program results to be achieved and how they will be achieved. Objectives are more precise and specific than goals, should have specific timelines for accomplishment (e.g., one school year), and must clearly align with your goals.
As a result of a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program, what outcomes or changes do you hope to see? Outcomes can include changes in: knowledge, attitudes, skills, behaviors, status, or level of functioning.
When selecting outcomes, begin by examining the goals and objectives you identified for your program. The assessment you completed in Step Two should also be used to help you establish a benchmark for improving school-level outcomes such as increasing physical activity opportunities throughout the school day and youth outcomes such as increasing the number of students who participate in 60 minutes of physical activity every day of the week. Your program may choose to focus on one or more outcomes over a period of time.
Once the Physical Activity Leader and committee have completed and interpreted the assessment results, developed a vision of what your program will look like, identified goals and objectives, and determined the desired outcomes, it is time to identify and plan the activities for your Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program.
Identifying and planning activities involves:
Next, create an implementation plan to outline what will be done, by whom, when, and how in order to meet the established priorities.
There are three recommended approaches for implementation.
The Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs: A Guide for Schools provides an implementation plan template that your committee can fill out. Once the implementation plan is developed, it is important to meet again with the stakeholders, such as the principal, school health council, or PTA, who will approve the plan.
Just as critical as developing and implementing a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program, your team must spend time to evaluate it to:
When designing the evaluation plan, it should clearly be based on goals, objectives, and outcomes. The types of evaluation tools, methods, and processes will depend on how the goals, objectives, and outcomes will be measured.
Evaluation data can be collected to measure how well or poorly programs have met your program's goals, objectives, and outcomes. Using the evaluation data is an effective strategy for building support from stakeholders, modifying the program, and ensuring sustainability for years to come.
Now, let's take a moment to check your knowledge on the process of a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program by answering a few questions.
CDC has a host of free tools and resources to support development, implementation, and evaluation of a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program that can be found at www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth, including the guide that will take you through the components and steps.
Developing a successful Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program must be a coordinated, synergistic approach to school physical activity by a team of stakeholders. This team has the ability to make a true impact on the well-being of students and set them on the right path for making healthy decisions in the future.
Thank you for participating in the Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs: A Guide for Schools course.
Please take a few moments to let us know about your experience by clicking on the evaluation link in the video summary. Your feedback is very important, and we value your opinion!
Finally, you can print a Certificate of Completion by clicking on the certificate link in the video summary.
We hope you've enjoyed participating in the Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs: A Guide for Schools course in the Training Tools for Healthy Schools e-learning series.