Getting miMoves into schools

At PEAK we wanted to offer schools additional value and provide them with a range of additional products and resources. A lot of ideas got mentioned but the main purpose was, and always will be, the physical and mental well-being of our children. Don’t get me wrong, giving a few match tickets to the football or a guest appearance from a semi famous footballer coming is nice but it certainly doesn’t improve your child’s physical levels or mental health – and as a fan of one of the leading North-East football teams – watching them certainly does nothing to improve my mental health!

At PEAK this year, we have introduced the teaching of Life skills to our Physical Education lessons, we’ve also introduced a child friendly app called miMoves.

PEAK’s PE Delivery manager Tony Stephenson said of the app, “The beauty of this app for me, is the students get to share their Physical activities with their teacher whilst also expressing how it made them feel. Certainly, now more than ever our children are falling out of love with sports or feeling anxious about certain things. well, this is a perfect tool to deal with these problems.”

“Its great to see big smiles on children's faces, being active and sharing what they are doing! they are loving it, its certainly the best part of the app in my eyes! The teachers can see which child is being active or inactive, what activities they are doing, for how long and how it makes them feel whilst doing these specific activities. The app has also been designed in a way for teachers to motivate the children to be more active, this could be a as simple as an encouraging ‘you can do this’ sort of message.”

“I have had the privilege to go in and host miMove assembly’s telling the staff and children what its about. Its amazing to see the high quality data that schools receive as they strive to build an active community and seeing how the positive impact it has already had on children and families out there. miMoves can be downloaded on any phone or tablet device and its absolutely free if you are part of PEAK’s community. One of my pet hates is children having their phones out all the time but this is unfortunately the world we live in today. With miMoves it shows a child can use technology in a good way but also gives the child a sense of responsibility to log their activities.” I certainly look forward to getting more schools on board with miMoves.

Maria Nicholson head of PE at St Aidans says, “As a school, we are at the start of our journey with MiMoves. It offers a safe accessible tool for children to monitor their activity in a way which appeals to them. It positively encourages children ‘s self-reflection on their activity and provides personal challenge. For us as teachers, it enables us to praise activity beyond school and also allows us to monitor and help the children who need more opportunity to be extra active within school.”

Nicola Dellow, PE Coordinator at St Albans also commented saying, “Since introducing miMove to our children there has been a real buzz around it in school. The children are keen to use the app and record what sports and activities they do in their own time, and I have even had parents emailing me, keen to become involved. It is going to be useful as time goes on to be able to see which of our curriculum PE lessons, enabling us to target children who maybe don’t engage as much and offer after school provision which caters better towards the interests of the children.”

To find out how your school can become a PEAK partner school why not email our School Delivery Manager at tony@peak-sport.co.uk or call us on 0191 704 2022. You may even want to take a look at bringing the experts in to deliver your PE www.peak-sport.co.uk/pe-delivery or our AfPE endorsed mentoring programme for teachers www.peak-sport.co.uk/pecs