Children and Young People: Exercise

(asked on 15th May 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the role of physical activity in promoting mental wellbeing among children and young people.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 22nd May 2023

The UK Chief Medical Officers' Physical Activity Guidelines set out how regular physical exercise provides a range of physical and mental health benefits for children and young people.

On 8 March 2023, the Government announced multi million pound funding to support schools in providing more opportunities for pupils to be active by accessing high quality Physical Education and school sport. This funding will help pupils to meet the UK Chief Medical Officers' daily recommended amount of physical activity.

To support pupils to access more opportunities to be active outside of school and gain the mental wellbeing benefits of exercise, the Department has announced funding of up to £57 million to deliver phase three of the Opening School Facilities programme. This will allow schools to open their sport facilities outside of the core school day, at weekends and during holidays. The funding will be targeted to the schools in the country’s least active communities, where it will have the most positive impact.

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