The Daily Mile™

During the Summer Term, schools and ‘social bubbles’, up and down the country, ran their Daily Mile together in an effort to raise awareness for children’s mental health and wellbeing. Ahead of the day, Charlie Honour from St Peter’s School in St Albans and staff at Cowley Hill Primary School in Hertsmere, who have recently embedded The Daily Mile into their Wellbeing Wednesday programme, supported HSP, with a Daily Mile article for the TES. Across Hertfordshire more than 36,000 primary school pupils were signed up to participate, from 143 schools, and it was great to see these schools encouraging children to be active as away to promote better physical health and mental wellbeing.

At St Alban and St Stephen Catholic Primary School, PE Lead Heather Bowen shared that the school had not been involved with The Daily Mile initiative before the event, but the children had such a great time that the school have now decided to adopt it as a regular physical activity across all school years.

Through the Partnership’s Active Local project, Athlete Mentors from the Youth Sport Trust carried out virtual visits to schools, with pupils and staff at Our Lady Catholic Primary School in Welwyn Garden City getting motivated on the event day by former professional tennis player Jade Windley.

Dan Abrahams, Deputy Head Teacher and PE Lead, shared that the school used the event day as an opportunity to trial The Daily Mile and see how it could be organised across the school: ‘Without doubt, the day could not be considered anything other than a roaring success and has left us in no doubt that we shall be offering the Daily Mile – daily! We truly believe that it will have a positive impact, not only in instilling a greater understanding of the importance of health, fitness and exercise, but in terms of behaviour and self-esteem.’