On your bikes, you fidgets!
Pupils get pedal machines to help them focus in class
PUPILS fidgeting in class can drive teachers round the bend.
But one head has come up with the perfect solution to stop youngsters fiddling and shuffling about in their seats – and it also helps them keep fit.
Children at Red oak Primary School in Lowestoft, Suffolk, have been issued with floor-mounted pedalling machines.
The trial has been so successful among seven and eight-yearolds that it is now being extended to all 330 pupils at the school.
Children fidgeted less in class, engaged more with teachers and assistants and were more likely to stay in their seats after the machines were introduced.
Head Heather Madsen, 44, who saw the benefits of children keeping active while working at a preschool in norway, came up with the idea after seeing an article about a school in north Carolina that adopted pedals for pupils. The Suffolk children are believed to be the first in the UK to have the £20 devices
Mrs Madsen said: ‘It has been really successful and the other children are all really looking forward to it.
‘ The desk pedals have now become a habit, as the pupils are fiddling less with things on the table. no one is forced to cycle – they are doing it by themselves – and the desk pedals are brilliant for those who want to burn off more energy.’
Teacher Johnny Lee, who is also the school’s PE co- ordinator, added: ‘ The behaviour is better and engagement in lessons has been great. The class has been really enthusiastic.’
The exercise machines, which are small enough to sit under desks but can be moved around the classroom, have been used during English, maths, IT and French lessons. They record how long pupils pedal for during the course of a day, the revolutions per minute and how many calories they have burned off.
The resistance can be adjusted, allowing more or less energy to be expended for the same number of revolutions. Pupils have been burning 600 calories a day on average.
one, Luissa, said: ‘It has made our lessons fun.’ Another, Jake, added: ‘It makes you burn lots of energy and helps us concentrate.’
The school, which is run by the Active Learning Trust academy, has introduced other measures to boost pupil health in addition to the compulsory two hours of physical activity each week under the national Curriculum.
In 2015 it began a golden Mile fitness club, where children run or walk a mile around the school field at lunchtimes. Last term it introduced a compulsory fiveminute daily walk.
Classrooms also have alarm clocks set at 20-minute intervals to remind teachers to get pupils to move around.
Mrs Madsen said: ‘ When we brought in the pedals at the start of term it was a bit of a novelty and the children spent a couple of days doing more pedalling than anything else. now it just goes on in the background.’