Jamie gave school dinners a health kick – now it’s time for teachers to get one too!

Jamie Oliver revived healthy school meals and now teachers are being challenged to lead a workplace health and fitness revolution.

The Workplace Challenge will be launched in January 2014, giving workplaces across England access to a free online activity logger to help people achieve their New Years health and fitness resolutions. As well as online support, loggers will have access to an array of challenges, competitions and special events to keep them inspired and motivated to keep active.

The site has been developed by the County Sports Partnership Network (CSP Network) in collaboration with the British Heart Foundation Health at Work programme, building on the growing appetite for people to track and log activity digitally.

Organisers hope that by targeting teachers there will be a knock on effect in parents, who see their teachers getting in shape as their own call to action. It is also hoped that active teachers will set the very best example for millions of children across the country to lead healthier and active lives in the future.

The more activity logged by a teacher or school, the more points they will achieve on the Workplace Challenge leaderboard. Schools will then go head to head with each other, to clinch the title of the Workplace Challenge winners. There will also be an opportunity to win an array of prizes and organisers are hoping that many local businesses will get involved in sponsoring some of the local challenges.

John Byrne, Head of the Workplace Challenge programme team said:

“There are many reasons why the Workplace Challenge wishes to support teachers in achieving their New Year health and fitness resolutions. Schools are often perceived as active environments but in reality teachers can spend hours sitting down, lesson planning and marking.

Fit and healthy teachers will lead to more sociable and stress free learning environments and set the very best example to future generations of the role that sport and activity should have in everyday life.

We hope that many head teachers will encourage their teaching staff to make 2014 the year for them, improving their health by registering and logging what they do with Workplace Challenge.”

Dave Thomas, Headteacher of Ashmount School (three-time Leicestershire Workplace Challenge team winners) said:

“Ashmount School has really benefitted from the Workplace Challenge. It has inspired our teaching staff to adopt healthy and more active lifestyles, and to get involved in a wider range of sports activities. We’ve organised weekly running clubs and Zumba and Yoga sessions for our staff and regularly participate in sports tournaments throughout the year, as well as having entered teams in our local Santa Fun Run, half marathons and 10 mile obstacle races. Staff have reported that they not only enjoyed the personal challenge but the sense of camaraderie that the competitions created between workplaces in the area. This all reinforces to our students how important it is to adopt healthy lifestyles too.

We were really pleased to hear that the Workplace Challenge would be rolled out nationally in 2014, giving more teachers the opportunity to take part and we will look forward to seeing how we progress in the local and national leader boards.”

For more information, log on to www.workplacechallenge.org.uk

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS:

Workplace Challenge

• Workplace Challenge is a free online platform enabling people to log all of their physical activity.

• Throughout 2014, employees and employers will be encouraged to start logging and generate points, enabling them to take part in a series of challenges, events and competitions.

• Points are calculated according to Metabolic Equivalents (METs) where 1MET is a person's average seated energy expenditure which is equivalent to 1kcal.kg-1.h-1. MET values will be different for different forms of exercise and will increase with the intensity and duration of exercise.

• Active loggers will be able to see a variety of stats including distance travelled, calorie burned and CO2 saved.

• A minimum of three registered employees are required for a workplace to appear in a leader board and people can also track their own individual progress locally and nationally.

• The platform has been developed, following a successful pilot by Leicester-Shire & Rutland Sport, with £500k investment from Sport England and will be run by the County Sports Partnership Network with support from the British Heart Foundation Health at Work team.

• Local County Sports Partnerships will manage the online platform for their community, ensuring that there are challenges, activities and competitions available offline to encourage people to stay active.

• It is anticipated that many people will use the platform to fundraise. E.g. The platform is already being used to support the ‘Run to Remember’ helping the Police in raising money for PC Nicola Hughes Memorial Fund, Victim Support, Care of Police Survivors and the North West Police Benevolent Fund.

County Sports Partnership Network

• The CSP Network represents 49 local County Sports Partnership teams across the country.

• Collectively, they contribute to the health of the nation by helping local partners, organisations and delivers to promote the benefits of active lifestyles across local communities.

• The CSP Network delivered The Community Games – one of the most successful community campaigns seen in the UK, attracting over 2 million members of the public to come together in local communities to take part in active cultural events inspired by 2012.

British Heart Foundation Health at Work (HaW)

• Coronary heart disease is the UK’s single biggest killer. For over 50 years we’ve pioneered research that’s transformed the lives of people living with heart and circulatory conditions. Our work has been central to the discoveries of vital treatments that are changing the fight against heart disease. But so many people still need our help. From babies born with life-threatening heart problems to the many Mums, Dads and Grandparents who survive a heart attack and endure the daily battles of heart failure. Join our fight for every heartbeat in the UK. Every pound raised, minute of your time and donation to our shops will help make a difference to people’s lives. For more information visit bhf.org.uk.

Phase 1 - Participating County Sports Partnerships (further phases in 2014)

• Active Essex
• Active Norfolk
• Bucks
• Derbyshire Sport
• Get Berkshire Active
• Greater Sport (Manchester)
• Hertfordshire (HSP)
• Leicester-Shire & Rutland Sport
• Lincolnshire
• Living Sport (Cambridgeshire & Peterborough)
• Northamptonshire Sport
• Northumberland Sport
• Oxfordshire
• Suffolk Sport
• PRO-ACTIVE (collaborative support from 4 London CSPs)
• Somerset
• South Yorkshire Sport
• Sport across Staffordshire & Stoke-on-Trent
• Sport Hampshire & IOW
• Wesport
• West Yorkshire Sport

Michelle Leavesley, Citydesk Sport, on behalf of Workplace Challenge and County Sports Partnership Network.

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