Primary school pupils pedal while they learn

♦ A school has installed pedals under desks so that children can keep fit while they learn.

Children from years one to six at Red Oak Primary School in Lowestoft, Suffolk, will use the floor-mounted devices during English, maths, French and ICT classes. The pedals have a digital display which shows exercise time duration, calorie consumption and revolutions per minute, and the school is planning to extend the programme to 11 other classes.

Heather Madsen, the head teacher, said: “We have a very standardised National Curriculum that involves a lot of sitting down – but children need to be active. 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. Nobody is forced to do it, but all the children do. On average, they are each burning about 600 calories a day.”