By Clare Morley, Rise CEO.

And so with a continuing sense of déjà vu, we find ourselves in another national lockdown, and as with Lockdown 1, Lockdown 3 brings with it school closures.

Whilst I am not here to debate the merits or politics around the decisions and process to close schools, I do want to shine a light on the significant concern about the impact on children and young people’s ability to be physically active during Lockdown 3.

When the schools re-opened in September 2020 following Lockdown 1, many teachers reported significant concerns with children’s fitness, with data suggesting only 19% of under 16s had been meeting recommended daily physical activity guidelines. Whilst the recent release of the Sport England Active Lives Children & Young People Survey suggests that activity levels for children did drop less than for adults, there was still a drop. And this was during the British summer – not necessarily balmy days – but certainly better than the driving sleet and howling wind that currently circulate around outside the loft room where I’m working from home on this January day.

So there is rightly significant concern that children’s physical activity levels will fall below the levels of Lockdown 1 during the current lockdown. This isn’t only because schools are closed, but also because of the wider ‘stay at home’ mandate meaning other places and spaces where children may be active are unavailable, and the outdoors can feel highly unattractive and inaccessible (both to children and their parents/carers) due to the bleak British winter.

Whilst there are a plethora of online options to help children (and adults) to be active in their own home, not least the famed return of PE with Joe, with the Good Things Foundation’s research suggesting that 54% of the North East is digitally excluded, we cannot possibly assume that online offers are going to fill the void of playground games, swimming lessons, PE at school, Play Streets, Junior Parkrun, age grade rugby, recreational gymnastics, roller-disco and so, so much more.

Even when schools do start to re-open as part of the Government’s “brick-by-brick” lifting of the current restrictions, if the experience of the Autumn 2020 term is anything to go by, when The Youth Sports Trust reported that only a quarter of schools were offering children more than 30 minutes of daily physical activity, then this will be no silver bullet. With the pressure on schools to support academic catch-up, PE and extra-curricular physical activity was frequently being marginalised.

This is not a criticism of schools. Far from it: my own experience has shown that teachers are working as hard as humanly possible to deliver a plethora of learning and activity options in exceptionally difficult circumstances. Rather, part of the problem of children’s physical inactivity during the pandemic generally, and particularly during lockdowns, lies in a plethora of areas: pressure on schools to focus on academic catch-up is one of them, but so are the stark figures presented above around digital exclusion; the reduction in facilities that are available for activity use; the fragile nature of voluntary sports clubs and their capacity to deliver; the restrictions on forms of games that national governing bodies have had to impose to ensure ‘Covid-secure’ environments; the fear (whether rooted in Covid concerns or safety more generally) that parents and carers have about allowing children outside for play; and the great British weather, to name just a few.

Thinking about these factors in terms of the ‘COM-B’ model of behaviour change (below), it’s clear to see that without the essential conditions of ‘opportunity’ and ‘capability’, then the impact on levels of physical activity will most certainly be negative, and it’s clear from the research that the limitations on opportunity will disproportionately impact disadvantaged children.

Image: Sport England

So what can we do? Again, there is no silver bullet, but as a society, we need to be aware of the impact of lockdowns and restrictions on children’s physical activity levels if we want our children and young people to have the best possible life chances. The powers that be need to consider how blanket restrictions may have a disproportionate impact on certain sections of society vis-à-vis their physical activity levels, and they must prioritise how ‘opportunity’ and ‘capability’ can be safely maximised.

Our Children and Young People’s team would be happy to talk to you about ways to approach keeping children and young people active. Click here to get in touch.