"30 minutes of physical activity" at school: the scheme to counter physical inactivity is called into question

The start of new school year was centred around the Olympic and Paralympic Games. 2022-2023 is “an opportunity to strengthen all schemes that encourage physical activity and sport among students”, including that of “30 minutes of physical activity per day” that was trialled at the start of the 2020-2021 academic year and generalised in September 2022.

The scheme is emblematic of the social heritage” project», set up as part of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which aims to use the event as an opportunity to address social issues. What can we expect of this measure for “30 minutes of physical activity per day”, implemented in all French primary schools?

This article is based on ongoing PhD research during which we interviewed around 40 stakeholders, including teachers who have to implement the scheme, the Olympic Games organisers and policy makers behind it and most of the intermediary stakeholders in the decentralised departments of the French Ministry of Education.

Combating sedentary lifestyles

Jointly spearheaded by the Olympic Games organisation committee and the Ministry of Education and Sport, the “30 minutes of physical activity per day” scheme aims to increase physical activity among students subject to increasingly sedentary lifestyles. It requires students to do at least 30 minutes of physical activity per day when they don’t have Physical Education (PE) lessons.

However, the scheme differs from to the PE curriculum, which primarily aims to teach students motor, methodological and social skills - although student health has always been an important focus. The required amount is three hours a week but most teachers face too many difficulties, particularly in terms of training, to fully meet institutional expectations.

The “30 minutes of physical activities per day” can be completed through active breaks during classroom-based teaching or movement-based learning or by encouraging students to take part in physical activity during break times. Teachers are given a great deal of freedom as to how they choose to implement the measure.

The World Health Organization sets the recommended amount of moderate-to-intense physical activity at one hour per day for children aged 5 to 17. The choice of “30 minutes” per day at school aims to highlight the joint responsibility of the educational system and families with regard to this national issue and to encourage parents to address their children’s physical inactivity and encourage them to complete the remaining half-hour.

Part of the heritage of Paris 2024

The scheme is considered by the COJOP (French Olympic and Paralympic Games Organising Committee) as an emblematic part of the heritage of the games. Its aim of increasing physical activity among the population is a major challenge given that most research shows that fact of hosting a major sports event has no significant impact in this area. On the other hand, promoting a scheme that involves every school in the host country as part of a major event has never yet been tested.

Several tools are available to help teachers implement these “30 minutes of physical activity per day”. The Génération 2024 website offers a range of resources from teaching guides for academic working groups to the “sports and attitude poses” of the Olympic mascots and hiit by Mc Fly and Carlito. « The French 30APQ team» is composed of top-level sportsmen and women who are committed to visiting classes and explaining the benefits of daily activity for physical and mental well-being.

Lastly, sets of sports equipment (bibs, balls, etc.), designed in partnership with Decathlon, are due to be delivered to all schools by the end of the academic year. A certain number of establishments, who joined the scheme during the experimentation phase, already have them. This support is welcomed by schools, who often have difficulty acquiring sports equipment, but is already raising logistical problems.

The fact that the scheme calls on the intervention of sports players and celebrities for the younger generation could also be perceived as a communication ploy. Through this desire to demonstrate that the Olympic Games have the power to transform society, it is the very legitimacy of the fact of hosting them that is at stake, bearing in mind that the event is not without its share of public protest.

This issue is all the more significant in areas at the heart of the Paris 2024 adventure. For example, thanks to the impetus given by intermediary stakeholders (heads of local education authorities, academic inspectors and teaching advisers) we see particular enthusiasm for the scheme in Créteil, which is one of the areas included in our study, in the form of teacher training focused on the scheme, among other things.

A farrago of school schemes

While the educational stakeholders we met during our surveys recognise that the problems caused by physical inactivity need to be addressed, many question the effectiveness of the proposed solution. The biggest criticism concerns the accumulation of demands on educational establishments, namely that the “30 minutes of physical activity per day” scheme has been introduced on top of a “farrago” of other requirements, including swimming lessons, « water skills», cycling lessons and the various “introductions to…” schemes – art and culture, sustainable development, etc.), to mention just a few.

«“When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority”, stressed one educational advisor. The multiple injunctions facing teachers are not unrelated to the professional malaise affecting this occupation. What is more, human resources and training for PE and sport have been cut back in recent years, a key example being the temporary disappearance of teacher training for PE in favour of the “Maths-French” focus due to be implemented under Jean Michel Blanquer.

The Syndicat National de l’Éducation Physique (SNEP, French PE teachers’ union) questions the creation of a new measure before a reassessment of the school discipline. The roll-out of the scheme has been partly hindered by these contradictions highlighted by local PE education advisers, who are in charge of disseminating ministerial orders to the schools in their department and who invest different amounts of time in implementing the “30 minutes of physical activity per day”, depending on their opinion on the measure.

The choice of format of the scheme can also be questioned in the light of scientific studies. For example, in an international meta-analysis focusing on 24 types of interventions in primary schools the researchers showed that, on average, such interventions do not significantly increase students’ level of activity. Where effects are visible in terms of reducing periods of inactivity, they remain minimal. The recommendations are for well-designed interventions with rigorous monitoring over time.

It is also important to consider the behaviour changes implied by “30 minutes of physical activity per day”, something that was not carried out during the trial phase. A platform was set up for schools who expressed the desire to take part in the scheme and the results, which were inconclusive, served as a basis for communicating on the benefits of the programme. Procedures for assessing the system, which have been sorely lacking until now, are only due to be implemented in the coming year.