Not too long ago, if you had mentioned physical activity to educators at the Sonas Early Learning & Care centres run by Shelley Prendergast, they would automatically have reached for the trusty old obstacle course.
These days, their physical activity repertoire is much more diverse. Children in their care are just as likely to be hopping, jumping and skipping their way to wash their hands or eat their lunch as they are to be having time outside riding bikes, climbing forts, and running around in the garden.
Whereas before our educators would just get children to walk, maybe in pairs, to the next activity, now they’ll give children physical activity movement to do in those transitions as well.” - Mrs Prendergast
This conscious shift to making the most of incidental – as well as dedicated – opportunities for physical activity has come about due to the Sonas group’s involvement in the Play Active trial, led by the Child Physical Activity, Health and Development team at Telethon Kids Institute in collaboration with The University of Western Australia, the ARC Life Course Centre and 10 partners across government, not-for-profit, the private sector and academic institutions.
Play Active is an evidence-based program designed to help early childhood and education centres (ECECs) increase the amount of physical activity children undertake every day.
Only a third of Australian children aged 2–5 meet the recommended level of at least three hours of physical activity a day – but while ECECs are required to meet national quality standards around physical activity, there has been little information, until now, to guide them. There is currently no regulatory requirement for ECECs to have a written physical activity policy, although the team hopes Play Active will help change this.
Play Active, developed by Associate Professor Hayley Christian and team and trialled in 79 ECECs across Perth throughout 2021, provides a physical activity policy template plus information, training and resources for staff on how to modify and implement the policy. The program includes clear tips and advice on how to help children be as active as possible throughout the day.
The trial – which reached almost 1,000 children – was so well received by ECECs that the team is now scaling Play Active up throughout Western Australia and other states. The program has also attracted international attention, becoming a highlighted case study in the World Health Organization’s 2021 Global Standards for Healthy Eating, Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour and Sleep in ECEC: A toolkit.
Mrs Prendergast, who had 11 ECECs participate in the trial, said Play Active was practical and accessible and helped fill knowledge gaps for staff who, while aware physical activity was an important developmental domain, hadn’t known as much as they would have liked about recommended levels or how to meet them.
Most had been surprised to learn that, despite having plenty of free-flowing space and garden area for children to run around and be active, most of the children weren’t meeting the 24-hour Movement Guidelines for their age.
Having a physical activity policy and including it in our planning documents – so staff don’t have to read a separate document while they’re planning for the next fortnight – forces them to actively and purposefully consider physical activity experiences for children every single day. - Mrs Prendergast
“If we know physical activity is important both for physical and mental and emotional wellbeing, and we know children aren’t as physically active as they should be, then we can make decisions for the children we have in our care now, so we can improve their outcomes for the future.
“Play Active is the perfect tool to do that, because it’s precise and it gives good, direct information.”
What's next
- Senior Research Officer Tepi McLaughlin, who is overseeing the expansion of Play Active, is working with the Telethon Kids Institute communications team on a series of short instructional videos to give educators easy, accessible tips on how to implement Play Active and boost children’s physical activity levels.
- The team has secured partners for the scale-up of Play Active throughout WA and is in talks to expand the program to ECECs in Queensland and South Australia, initially, and other states later.
- The team has contributed evidence and will continue to campaign with collaborators to change state and national regulations to require early childhood and education centres to have a written physical activity policy.