Interview with Dr Gemma Ryde

Source: Nursery World

Date: 29-October-2018

Dr Ryde led a study exploring how The Daily Mile, an initiative that encourages nurseries and primary schools to take children outside to run 15 minutes every day, has been successfully implemented.

WHAT DID YOUR RESEARCH FIND?

Our study found that having simple core intervention components (walk, jog, run), flexible delivery that supports teacher autonomy and being adaptable to suit the specific primary school context appear to be key aspects of The Daily Mile that are related to its implementation success. Other factors relating to how The Daily Mile was developed, trialled and rolled out might also have contributed towards its successful implementation.

The findings are based upon interviews with staff from four primary schools in Scotland who had a significant role in implementing the initiative. We asked them about how The Daily Mile was delivered at their school and what barriers and benefits they had encountered.

DO YOU THINK OTHER NURSERIES/SCHOOLS WILL NOW BE ENCOURAGED TO TAKE UP THE DAILY MILE?

This research aimed to provide information on what to consider for others who are wanting to start The Daily Mile in order to increase the likelihood of it being a success in other schools. Hopefully this will encourage others to take part in The Daily Mile as they can see what some schools have already tried. To support this, we have developed the ‘how to, why to’ guide, which provides more practical advice on what schools have considered when implementing The Daily Mile, including setting up and managing the route, which we hope will be useful to them.

Also contributing to the research were Dr Colin Moran, Dr Naomi Brooks and Ross Chesham from the University of Stirling, Dr Josie Booth from the University of Edinburgh’s Moray House School of Education, and Dr Trish Gorely from the University of the Highlands and Islands.

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