How can physical education be used to promote well-being in primary education?- Hannah Burton

The aim of this blog post is to discuss how physical education can be used to promote well-being in primary education. The Association of Physical Education (2015) talk about physical education being a continuous, organised learning process in which it takes place within school hours and it includes learning a number of different skills within a wide range of movement activities and having a clear idea of what physical activity is and its impact.

DECELLS (2008) expresses the importance of physical education within the curriculum as it motivates pupils to progress on their physical skills as they are key when taking part within a wide range of activities. There are a number of benefits of physical education as it can promote children to improve on their skills in order for them to perform well which will result in their confidence and self-esteem to flourish, they will learn the importance of working as a team and how physical activity can be important to keeping fit and improving their overall health and well-being (DECELLS, 2008). It is suggested that children should take part within moderate physical activity for at least 60 minutes or more a day in order for it to improve their emotional, social and cognitive development (Lynch, 2016). As, it has been proclaimed from a study by Janssen and LeBlanc (2010) that taking part within low intensity activities has no positive impact on a child’s health.


From my own experience of physical education within school I thought a limitation of physical education would be freedom of choice. We were told what activities we would be participating within without having any choice over it. This had an impact on my confidence as I would struggle with activities that I wasn’t good at and I didn’t particularly want to take part within activities and different sports that I wasn’t interested in.


At this present time Health and mental well-being has become particularly important within education as Donaldson (2015) claims children and young people have thought that they should be taught about it as it has become one of the main problems. Also, technology is on the up and children are having more access to the media as a study by Gingold, Simon and Schiendorf (2014) has shown that children consuming large amounts of media has resulted in problems within school, obesity and can have an impact on their development and their mental health. This has resulted in national issues arising within schools and society such as obesity and mental health in which Donaldson aims to tackle these within the new curriculum Successful Futures. This will be done by getting rid of the physical education subject and include it within the Health and well-being area of learning in order to take a holistic approach to enable children to flourish and achieve within their education. Donaldson (2015) notes that this area of learning will assist them with constructing information and recognising skills to allow them to build effective relationships as well as being able to face challenging problems and decision making in order to become a more independent individual.   


The Welsh Assembly Government (2010, p.7) define well-being “as a holistic, subjective state which is present when a range of feelings, among them energy, confidence, openness, enjoyment, happiness, calm, and caring, are combined and balanced’.”                                                                                                             However Young Minds (2017) claim that well-being can be defined in many ways which has been shown by The World Health Organisation (no date) as they suggest “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.”                                                                                                               Mental health and well-being has become a big issue within education as statistics from YoungMinds (2017) noted that there are 1 in 10 young children who have a recognised mental health disorder and nearly 1 in 4 children display some form of poor mental health. A document from Brooks (2014) found that children with greater health and well-being are more prone to become successful within their education. Also, if children are able to understand one another’s emotions and to control their own emotions in a better way; this then can be effective to their educational success as well as mental health, well-being and social interactions (Lu & Buchanan, 2014).


Brooks (2014) talks about physical education as a way to promote well-being within schools as these are seen as a pathway to developing children’s overall wellbeing. It has been shown to be the role to learning about the body (Lynch & Soukup, 2016). Also, physical education and the educator itself can be seen to approach problems (Evans, Davies & Wright) such as obesity and poor mental health.


Joe Wicks, The Body Coach has been involved with helping schools become more active with his HIIT (High Intensity, Interval Training) initiative, this aims to get children and teachers fit; across the country in numerous schools, every morning the children will take part within a HIIT session to get them moving (Tes Reporter, 2017). These sessions have become very popular within schools and enjoyable for the children.


In Wales, Sport Wales introduced Dragon Sports which has become popular within schools as it has sparked interest amongst children; giving them opportunity to participste within different sports in their schools. This approach is for primary aged children to improve their skills in order to take part within physical activities which can be transferrable to a wide range of different sports. It has been said that Dragon Sport has helped with putting physical education into practice by giving teachers confidence and different suggestions on what activities they could provide for the children (Sport Wales, no date).

The Healthy Schools Scheme programme was also put in place by Public Health Wales to help schools to improve their health by promoting and fixing the mental physical and health and well-being of the community (Public Health Wales, no date). This has been seen as successful within schools as they have extended the scheme to pre-school children.

What are your thoughts on how physical education can promote well-being?

Reference list

Brooks, F. (2014). The link between pupil health and wellbeing and attainment: A briefing for head teachers, governors and staff in education settings. Public Health England. London: PHE Publications.

DECELLS. (2008). Physical education in the National Curriculum for Wales. Welsh Assembly Government.

Donaldson, G. (2015) Successful Futures: Independent Review of Curriculum and Assessment arrangements in Wales. Welsh Government.

Evans, J., Davies, B., & Wright, J. (2004). Body Knowledge and Control: Studies in the Sociology of Physical Education and Health. London: Routledge.

Gingold, J., Simon, A. & Schoendorf, K. (2014). ‘Excess Screen Time in US Children’, Clinical Pediatrics, 53(1), pp.41-50.

Janssen, I., & LeBlanc, A., G. (2010). ‘Systematic review of the health benefits of physical activity and fitness in school-aged children and youth’, International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity, 7(40).

Lu, C., & Buchanan, A. (2014). Developing Students’ Emotional Wellbeing in Physical Education, Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, 85(4), pp.29-30.

Lynch, T. (2016). The Future of Health, Wellbeing and Physical Education: Optimising Children’s Health through Local and Global Community Partnerships. London: Palgrave Macmillan.  

Lynch, T., & Soukup, J., G. (2016). ‘“Physical education”, “health and physical education”, “physical literacy” and “health literacy”: Global nomenclature confusion’, Cogent Education, 3(1).

Public Health Wales. (No date). Welsh Network of Healthy School Schemes. Available at: http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sitesplus/888/page/82249#pre [Accessed: 25/03/18]

Sport Wales. (No date). Dragon Multi-Skills & Sport. Available at: http://sport.wales/community-sport/education/dragon-multi-skills--sport.aspx [Accessed:25/03/18]

Tes Reporter. (2017). Joe Wicks is on a mission to get your pupils (and you) fit with HIIT. Available at: https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/joe-wicks-a-mission-get-your-pupils-and-you-fit-hiit [Accessed: 25/03/18]

The Association of Physical Education. (2015). Definition of Physical Activity, Physical Education and School Sport. Available at: http://www.afpe.org.uk/physical-education/wp-content/uploads/Definition-of-PA-PE-School-Sport.pdf [Accessed: 25/03/18]

The Welsh Assembly Government. (2010). Thinking positively: Emotional health and well-being in schools and Early Years settings. P.7. Available at: http://gov.wales/docs/dcells/publications/070910thinkingpositivelyen.pdf [Accessed: 25/03/18]  

The World Health Organisation. (No date). Promotion of mental well-being. Available at: http://www.searo.who.int/entity/mental_health/promotion-of-mental-well-being/en/ [Accessed:25/03/18]

Young Minds. (2017). Wise Up: Prioritising wellbeing in schools. Available at: https://youngminds.org.uk/media/1428/wise-up-prioritising-wellbeing-in-schools.pdf [Accessed:25/03/18]