Examination of Witnesses (Questions 500-519)
6 NOVEMBER 2003
DR ALAN
MARYON DAVIS,
MR JOHN
GRIMSHAW, PROFESSOR
CHRIS RIDDOCH,
DR SUE
CAMPBELL CBE AND
MR TOM
FRANKLIN
Q500 Mr Amess: My other half would
not.
Professor Riddoch: This is such
an important point. What you will gather is where we are all coming
from is that we have created a culture, an environment where not
being active is the easy thing to do and it is the quickest thing
to do. To take David's point about children, children actually
cope with it slightly better than adults, in fact they take twice
as much exercise as adults. It is not enough, because we know
they are getting fatter. All the issues which have been raised
about parental perceptions of danger, about traffic, about paedophiles
behind every bush are very, very important things to address.
We have to get the environment in which we live fixed in some
way and it will be a long-term strategy involving many agencies
to enable us to live an active lifestyle in an active environment.
Any individual strategy is doomed to not high levels of success
while that individual strategy is operating in an environment
which is more pervasive towards sedentary living. For all the
GP referral schemes, all that PE teachers do, all that sports
clubs can do, these children will still be living in an inactive
environment.
Q501 Dr Taylor: While we are on cycle
paths, can I ask Mr Grimshaw's opinion of the yard-wide tracks
at the side of major roads with pictures of cycles inside them?
Is that really to cut down the speed of the traffic or is it actually
to enable cyclists to cycle there?
Mr Grimshaw: I hoped you were
going to congratulate me on the beautiful path I built from Kidderminster
to Stourport for you along the canal banks.
Q502 Dr Taylor: Give me a chance
and I will.
Mr Grimshaw: The issue about cycling
lanes, which is what you are talking about, is quite critically
that they do not work at all unless they are continuous. If they
are continuous through junctions and if they give cyclists space
at crucial junctions then they are of value because they are firstly
sending a message to motorists that cyclists are legitimate travellers
and if you analyse photographs and so on, the traffic does move
over that little bit. Unfortunately in Britain there is no culture
which says cyclists are important travellers as with walkers.
So mostly any cycle lane stops exactly where you want it, at the
junction. You are quite right. If you do not see the red line
going through every junction in Kidderminster, then you should
take some direct action.
Q503 Dr Taylor: Our Chairman is keen
on canals for the use of the water but the towpaths are ideal
for cycle tracks. Turning back to the measurement of exercise,
should one of our very simple recommendations be that pedometers
are much more widely available, cheap to provide and simple to
use?
Mr Franklin: I would very much
agree with that. In the studies we have done, they are a very,
very effective tool. People do not actually have to wear them
for that long. People only have to wear them for a week or so
before they start to get a pattern of their exercise and they
start to consider, if they did that slightly differently, what
the effect would be. In a sense they are a guide, but they are
a very, very effective guide. The thing about walking is that
it is susceptible to marketing campaigns, to individualised marketing
campaigns. In Perth in Western Australia, there was a very large
shift from car journeys to walking, for those journeys which can
be walked, as a result of going into somebody's home, sitting
down with them and talking through the changes to their lifestyle
they could have. The problem is that the Government is almost
embarrassed about promoting walking. I have to say that I think
this comes from the John Cleese sketch 25 years ago of the Ministry
of Silly Walks. Since 1996 every Transport Minister has promised
a national walking strategy and every one has failed to deliver,
going right the way back to the previous Conservative Government
which began the moves to get a national walking strategy. They
have not delivered because each time ministers get cold feet because
they think they are going to be perceived as the Minister for
Silly Walks. We have to get the message over that it is not silly
to promote walking, it is actually a very sensible thing to do,
for health benefits as much as anything else.
Q504 Chairman: How widely available
is the pedometer which I have been supplied with which actually
indicates the calorific value of the miles you have done in terms
of how many you have burned off?
Mr Franklin: We find them very
difficult to get hold of. I do not know whether anybody else can.
Q505 Chairman: I am very fortunate
in the one I have then.
Professor Riddoch: You can get
them anywhere. The cheap ones are very good for motivational purposes
and we have to differentiate between the ones we use for motivational
purposes, which are cheap and simple, and those you would want
to use for research purposes. Pedometers only measure walking;
they do not measure cycling or swimming and they do not differentiate
between strolling, walking, running and sprinting. They just measure
landings.
Q506 Chairman: It is very helpful
if you know in relation to your exercise just how many calories
you have got rid of by that exercise.
Professor Riddoch: Absolutely,
yes; that is the motivational side of these instruments, which
is quite strong.
Q507 Dr Taylor: In the States we
were actually given a conversion for cycling. It was something
like 150 steps is one minute cycling.
Professor Riddoch: Maybe.
Q508 John Austin: Just on cycling,
I do not wish this to be seen as a criticism of Sustrans because
I am a great supporter of what they have done. I take Richard's
point. I live on the banks of the Thames and the cycle path now—I
cycled it last week—is an excellent innovation. When you
come to the urban environment are we really going to be able to
succeed in an urban environment like London when the key thing
about Holland and the other countries such as Denmark, is the
complete separation in many places of the cyclists from the other
traffic? If you go down the Plumstead Road now you have a bit
of green tarmac which suddenly swerves out between the bus lane
and the motor traffic and cuts back across again. I take your
point about continuity being important and a different culture.
Most motorists do not even stop at traffic-light controlled pedestrian
crossings unless there is somebody physically in the middle of
the road. Are we really wasting our time trying to get people
onto bikes in environments like London?
Mr Grimshaw: Coming from Bristol,
I am afraid I cannot comment about London. There is a whole range
of matters which are physical arrangements which are common in
Europe which we just do not adopt here. The most obvious one is
the pedestrianised city centre which has completely destroyed
cycling in Britain and we may disagree on this but if you go into
an Italian town or a Danish town all the city centres are completely
permeable to cyclists, in other words they are walking and cycling
areas. The average cycle journey is very short: it is one or two
kilometres. The average walking journey is half that distance.
If you sit in any Italian town, whether it is Florence as a tourist
town or a smaller town, Pesaro or somewhere, you will find that
people of every age are making these short journeys. If you like,
we have sealed off most town centres to the most important journey.
There are some exceptions to this, like the City of York which
permits cycling before ten and after four. That enables the journey
to school and the journey to work to go across the city. That
is just one example of a stranglehold that we have created in
our culture.
Q509 John Austin: So we need a complete
change in our urban planning and urban design.
Mr Grimshaw: That is not a big
change, with respect. After all, you let service vehicles into
these places. Another very common example is the notion that cyclists
go two ways down a one way road. That is normal in Denmark or
Holland because the object of walking or cycling is to give the
public the shortest possible journey to make that mode of transport
the most convenient. In Britain, if you talk to the Department
for Transport, they have an absolute horror of allowing walkers
or cyclists to have a benefit, an advantage over motorists. In
other words, if motorists go the long way round the cities then
cyclists have to because it would be unfair on the motorists if
the cyclists had a shortcut. Last summer I was in Wintertuhr in
Switzerland, the main industrial city of Switzerland and cyclists
were going two ways on all roads. It was a very simple bit of
paintwork, a few hundred pounds at either end. You could say that
is a cultural thing, but physically it would be possible for us
to do. The real cultural issue in Britain is that pedestrians
and cyclists are not treated as real travellers. You probably
know that cyclists are often faced with a sign which says "Cyclists
dismount". I do not think any motorist has ever faced a sign
saying "Get out of your car and push the button" or
something. That is just an indication of the way they are treated
as a sub-species. It is possible, but it is a huge battle, because
there is no city in the western world which has managed to get
cycling up from the very low levels we have allowed things to
fall to in Britain. We have lost a habit and there is a whole
generation of people who have not cycled in Britain.
Dr Maryon Davis: On the question
of London, I am a cyclist and I cycle into it every day and I
am certainly grateful for the little green channels by the kerbside;
they make a huge difference. One thing I have noticed, particularly
in London, is the effect of the congestion charge, which has suddenly
made life for cyclists so much safer and more pleasant. That has
been a great boon and if the notion of congestion charges in city
centres is rolled out across the country that in itself will have
a terrific effect on enhancing and encouraging cyclists.
Q510 John Austin: May I come back
to the question of physical education and physical activity in
schools? There is no doubt that there has been a reduction in
the formal physical education which goes on in schools. There
are also alarming figures which show that the number of children
taking part in no sport at all has increased and is increasing.
What proportion does physical education in schools play as part
of the physical activity needed by children? If we could get all
children doing two hours a week of physical activity formally
in school, what would the impact of that be?
Professor Riddoch: The actual
time a child is in physical education is a small proportion of
its waking hours. We are looking at it in slightly the wrong way,
with all due respect. It should not be a dose of activity to contribute
towards the total because it will be a very small contribution
to the total of what a child does. If it is used for educational
purposes to encourage children into different types of activity,
promoting fun and enjoyment, making the child feel competent at
physical movement, then all those things are wrapped up with the
psychology of the child as well and will make that child much
more comfortable with the notion of exercise. It is down to the
quality of that experience and not how much exercise is done during
those two hours. That impacts back on training of PE teachers
and whether they are appropriately trained for this sort of educational
experience.
Dr Campbell: I am sure you are
fully aware that the Government is putting a large amount of money
into physical education and school sport, a massive investment
in facilities and £750 million which will impact on around
2,300 schools in terms of providing improved school sports facilities
and £459 million on top of that which will provide and is
providing people in every school; every primary, every secondary
and every special school will have a person whose job it is to
lead a more effective physical education programme and to ensure
that after-school activity is wide ranging and reaches as many
children as it can. This is very different from what we used to
have where it was very much the ones who wanted to play in teams
who stayed after school. Whilst that is still very valuable, we
are trying to expand that. But physical education and school sport
is one contributor to physical activity. It cannot be the contributor.
I am obviously very passionate about it and if we can teach it
effectively and well, we can excite, engage and energise kids
who want to be physically active. The greatest challenge we have
is getting that right in our primary schools where we have primary
teachers who are generalists by training. That is what is true
in all primary schools. What has happened with the increased emphasis
on numeracy and literacy, which we all understand the need for,
is that the physical education part has been squeezed more and
more. Indeed the generalists who are trained now in primary teaching
are getting less time, particularly for physical education, in
their training. At a time when we have little people who might
be willing to engage with us and be active and get physically
engaged, we probably have the people with perhaps the least personal
desire to be delivering it. That is not a criticism of primary
teachers; they are wonderful and you can watch them all over the
country. Many of them are fantastic as teachers, but their own
personal experience of PE was not often very positive, they have
had a limited amount of training, yet here we are asking them
to excite, enthuse, energise children to be engaged in physical
education and to think physical activity is fun. We have a lot
of work to do. We are making a great start. The investment is
tremendous but we still have a long way to go and particularly
in our primary schools, a long way to go to get this right. The
early research evidence from the work which is going on now in
playgrounds in primary schools is absolutely fantastic: £10
million from DfES invested in the 27 highest crime areas, which
will transform around 450 playgrounds in some of our most challenging
primary schools in inner city areas, not just in terms of physical
activity, but in terms of learning, in terms of behaviour management,
in terms of social development. Sometimes the smallest investment
in some of these schools can actually generate a massive return.
Physical education, physical activity on the school playgrounds,
after-school activity and after-school sport are all contributors,
but they are as much contributors to attitude as they are to activity.
It is about whether we have really captured kids minds and understanding,
whether they know why they are doing this stuff, why they need
to be active, why they need to be healthy, why it is relevant
to them and how they can do it in a way they want and which is
enjoyable.
Q511 John Austin: On the playground
initiative, could Dr Campbell tell us when that is likely to be
evaluated?
Dr Campbell: It is being evaluated
independently by Loughborough University. The early research on
it is outstanding in terms of the impact it is having.
Q512 John Austin: Is anything available
at the moment which we could see?
Dr Campbell: We could certainly
let you have the interim report; I should be happy to do that.
I will make sure you receive that.
Dr Maryon Davis: One of the key
factors about PE and sport in schools initiative was that it was
focused initially on the most deprived parts of the country, which
is really important. Another key criterion in terms of where the
grants were made was that the equipment and gear which was put
into schools and the building which went on should be something
which could be used by the whole community. You are using the
school as a resource and facility for the whole surrounding community
and families could get involved. It is one thing to get it happening
in the school with the school children themselves: it is quite
another thing to get the parents and the families involved and
the community. It is very important.
Q513 John Austin: You talked about
exercise which was cool or not cool. One of the things a lot of
young people do is go clubbing and some of that takes a lot of
physical activity. Do we underestimate the value of dance in schools?
Dr Campbell: Dance is part of
the physical education curriculum which is to be delivered in
all schools. I do think we underestimate the power of dance, particularly
to reach young women. I do not want to be sexist but certainly
the work we have done with 11 to 13-year-old girls—we did
a survey of 3,000 young women in secondary schools—showed
that whilst they often liked the PE teacher in that she seemed
quite cool because she was always dressed differently from all
the other teachers, they had actually gone off PE already. They
were doing it because they quite liked the teacher, but they were
not engaged in it; they went along but were no longer really engaged
in the activity. About 80% of them had really decided this was
not so cool, the way they were dressed, the activities they were
being asked to do, the nature of the showers. I could spell it
out and I am sure you could tell me. All those things actually
made physical education a deterrent to physical activity rather
than an enabler. What we have done now is worked with 1,500 secondary
schools and over the next 18 months we will be tackling just over
1,500. We have looked at redesigning the physical education curriculum
for young women for that 11 to 14 age group and dance comes zooming
to the top there, all sorts of dance. Activities which are more
esthetic in nature do appeal to young women as opposed perhaps
to the traditional menu of hockey and netball, which is still
valid for some young people and certainly I would have still wanted
to do my hockey and netball, but for the vast majority you have
to provide a much more engaging menu and dance is a big part of
that.
Q514 John Austin: Is there a danger
of underestimating the attraction dance may have for some young
men as well?
Dr Campbell: Absolutely. That
is why we should not stereotype things; we must not do that. Some
young women—and I would have been one of them—love
playing games and there are still women who want to do that. When
you actually do attitudinal survey work, which again was done
by Loughborough University for us, the majority of those young
women did not find games playing particularly attractive. Some
did, but they were in the minority; the majority did not want
to play games. Equally, I am sure if you surveyed boys the majority
would have been happy with games, but there would have been a
minority for whom that was not comfortable either. We have to
make sure, as we design our physical education programmes, that
they are wide and they touch the interests of every youngster
so that we can engage them and we can capture them at the one
time we have them all in our hands in a sense. That is the power
of schools. We have them in our hands to do things and that is
why it is so exciting.
Q515 Chairman: Can I press you further
on the research you have done with girls? Was it your opinion
that the actual activity was a turnoff, or perhaps the competitive
nature, it was dirty or whatever? Or was it more to do with the
wider picture, changing facilities? As part of this inquiry we
went to the Leeds area and I went into a school which has Sports
College status. One of the things they have been able to do is
address the changing facilities for both girls and boys. They
have individual cubicles, separate shower arrangements. Is that
a big issue or is it your view that it is the nature of the activity
which is the problem rather than the wider aspects of preparing
and showering afterwards etcetera.
Dr Campbell: You are not going
to like this answer, but it is both really. It is complex stuff.
Aspects like the kinds of clothes we ask people to wear to do
physical activity, whether that is in school or out of school.
We have certain images of the way people should dress when they
do physical activities. Sometimes those images are not terribly
young people friendly. So redesigning the gear in which they can
do PE. Changing rooms are a massive issue, particularly for young
women as they are going through that change in their lives where
their body shape is changing. They are very much more self-conscious
and you are asking them to strip off and run through what are
often horrible smelly showers with a lot of others. There are
things there that really make the whole environment uncomfortable
in which you are asking them to perform. Many of the specialist
sports colleges are doing some outstanding work with young women
and indeed, building on the point made earlier, working in the
community with women in the community, re-engaging back into activity
and part of that has been the re-design of the changing rooms.
It is a big issue; you cannot underestimate how big an issue it
is, as is clothing. It is also this menu. You probably thought
so already, but I started off life as a PE teacher. We worked
on a very traditional menu. We did hockey and netball in winter
and athletics and tennis in summer and a bit of gym and dance.
That is what many schools turn out. We really have to challenge
that. If we are really going to reach every child, that menu does
not do it. It really does not. It does it for those who are keen,
good, enthusiastic and athletic. It really does not do it. As
you get up that age range, so the whole thing starts to drop away.
We really have to tackle that.
Q516 Chairman: May I put it to you
that you have been around for some time in key positions in relation
to government policy on sport? You will have had this question
put to you on many previous occasions. One of the worries I have,
as someone who has had a love of sport and active involvement
in sport all my life, is the way in which government policy appears
increasingly to address the development of excellence, possibly
at the expense of participation. I was particularly struck, as
somebody who is a rugby league fanatic, that when we were in Leeds
and we went to a particular group of kids who were at an obesity
clinic or something, these kids were pretty overweight and one
lad said that he had applied to join an amateur rugby league club
and he had been turned down on the basis that he would never make
it. I find that surprising, because I think my sport is pretty
inclusive usually. I thought that kid could have been turned into
a fairly useful prop possibly and something could have been done.
It was the way in which the perception was "He ain't going
to make it, so don't bother". That saddened me. I get the
impression that is not just an isolated example. There are lots
of kids who feel they are not going to get anywhere and they are
not really encouraged to participate. Is that an issue you have
looked at and if so what are your views on how we address it?
Dr Campbell: The PE and sport
post in schools which we are beginning to transform lends itself
neatly to the next piece of the jigsaw which is sports clubs.
Not that that is where every youngster will go by any means, but
for those who do want to venture there, we need to make sure it
is a child friendly, child safe environment which embraces all
young people. The reality of most sports clubs is that they are
run by volunteers. For me, one of the biggest challenges we have,
and it is one we are now engaged in talking to Sport England about
and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, is how to bring
about the same kind of transformation in club sport that we are
beginning to make happen in school sport? Then we will have some
sort of connectivity. We have a long way to go in club sport and
you are right, we get the annual questions about Wimbledon or
other things and one of the biggest challenges in tennis is that
tennis club members tend to be people who want to play tennis.
They are not very keen on having these hundreds of marauding youngsters
appear on their door wanting to take their court time. Tennis
clubs are very aware of that and starting to do some good work,
but it is about a change of culture and a change of attitude.
If we are looking at sports clubs, yes, I believe that is the
next big piece of transformation work we have to do in sport development
if we are going to connect this re-engaged enthusiasm we are hoping
to get in schools into clubs.
Q517 Chairman: I am genuinely encouraged
by some of the things we have seen in schools in respect of PE
and I know that the Sports Minister is very well aware of the
issues which have to be addressed and he is watching this inquiry
with interest because he understands the links we are all well
aware of. One of the issues which worries me very much in terms
of our objectives on increasing school sport is the way I am being
told by teachers in my area, head teachers, to whom I have talked
about trying to increase the levels of physical activity, is that
the real pressure on them is in academic achievement in relation
to league tables. You are well aware of this. We are not telling
you anything you are not fully conversant with. How do we balance
out the pressure in terms of measurement and achievement in schools
and league tables to reflect the health gain of activities as
well as the academic gain of the work they are doing.
Dr Campbell: That is such a massive
question and it is such a good one too. First of all, would it
not be great to publish a league table on physical activity levels
in our schools? I wonder whether that would change parental choice.
We do not: we produce league tables on academic achievement and
that does create a pressure within the school. It comes back to
the first question, that what we then end up with is disenfranchising
the physical part of it. The way I have often described it, is
that the physical education department is often parked in a small
gym on its own past the toilets at the extremity of the school.
In a way we are less important to the head teacher than whether
the toilets are working, because we have taken ourselves to the
extremity. What we are trying to do with this new initiative is
bring PE and sport back into the heart of schools and demonstrate
with good evidence, properly recorded, well researched evidence,
that when that happens it enhances academic achievement, it improves
citizenship, it improves social responsibility, it really can
help transform the ethos of the school. That is what the specialist
sports colleges are trying to do. Not all of them are 100% successful,
but that is their endeavour. It is not just to be better at sport,
but rather to use it to create a better school environment within
which young people learn. We have to find a way of making sure
for parents that we record and make sure on a very regular annual
reporting basis that they know what we are doing and what this
means in terms of health and physical activity. That is a big
step. I have found one of the difficulties is getting clarity
about the minimum levels of physical activity. We talk about five
lots of 30 minutes, but at what intensity? Is ambling to school
with your mate, having a chat, intense enough? Does that make
a real health difference? That is one of the things I, as a professional
in the field, think I need greater clarity on. What is it we are
asking here? Having defined it very clearly, all these strategies
have all to come together. It is not one strategy, it is all of
us collaboratively creating the environment in which we can do
that. In schools we have to record and value physical education
in the same way we record and value academic achievement.
Q518 Chairman: What are your views
on the issue of screening youngsters for weight? You are talking
about reporting to parents and that stimulating their interest
in the activities. What about the issue of regular measurement
of weight. This has been kicked around as an issue during this
inquiry. Most of us remember having regular medical checks when
we were in school and it does not happen in the way it used to
happen when most of us were at school for a variety of reasons.
Dr Campbell: I remember conducting
those. PE staff used to have to do those and they were not very
nice; all those feet you had to look at. Not very comfortable.
Q519 Chairman: Would that be an issue?
Would that tie in with what you are aiming to do with a wider
awareness of issues?
Dr Campbell: That is where we
need to work with the health experts and the health professionals
to try to use what we are now doing in PE and school sport, which
is to create a network for the first time, of people with dedicated
time and energy to drive these agendas. I am not a health specialist,
I am a physical education and sport expert. If that is something
which through the Department of Health and the health experts
we felt was a really good way of helping to incentivise and develop
a better attitude to physical activity, then we would do that.
We always have to be a bit careful of being overly prescriptive
with kids and certainly in schools. Our job in schools is to help
young people make informed choices: it is not to tell them what
their choices are. Many people think that education is about telling
kids what their choices are. I do not sign up to that. I really
believe it is about helping kids make informed choices and providing
the information to them so that they can make those choices, but
giving them the understanding that goes with it. Some degree of
screening might be very useful, but I would look to our health
experts to tell me what kind of screening.
Dr Maryon Davis: On the business
of screening, that used to be a key function of the school nurse.
There are several issues there. One is that school nurses are
getting thinner on the ground and we have to increase that workforce,
it is an important workforce. Secondly, they have tended to move
away from this regular monitoring of height and weight and have
moved into more interesting areas of sexual health and drugs and
relationships and that sort of stuff. I think we may well need
a return to some sort of regular monitoring, just in terms of
early diagnosis, to see which children are beginning to show signs
of overweight and then perhaps targeting. What we have to do is
target some of the work we do at the more at risk people. The
danger, the down side, is that you start victim blaming and you
start stigmatising and that can be a problem. To get back to the
issue of half an hour a day and five days, I sometimes think that
these notions of targets or levels of what is acceptable activity
can get in the way. Here we are talking about obesity, here we
are talking about expending energy. Frankly, anything you do to
get up out of bed and start moving about is expending more energy.
The more you walk up and down stairs and around, the more energy
you are spending. You do not have to do half an hour a day five
days a week in order to expend more energy. Sometimes that can
get in the way and be very offputting for people if they think
they are not going to achieve that sort of thing. One other comment
about encouragement and empowerment. I think of it in terms of
the five "Es". I think of the five things we need to
get right for children and also for adults—we have not talked
much about adults today because we have focused mainly on children.
Education is clearly important, understanding why it is useful
to take up exercise and to keep active. Empowerment is important.
A lot of people, young people in particular, feel embarrassed,
self-conscious, they lack self esteem, they do not think they
are up to it. That whole empowerment thing is important. We talked
about encouragement, which is all the motivational stuff, "You
can do it and it is worth doing", encouraging people to get
stuck in. Enablement. This brings us onto the whole area of access
to facilities and I am sure we have touched on that before, being
able to get to facilities conveniently, cheaply, nearby, all that
sort of stuff. Environment—and we have talked a lot about
that this morning in terms of safe environments for exercise,
comfortable environments, convenience and convivial. Let us not
forget convivial, because the social aspects of all this, the
conviviality of keeping active, can make a huge difference. I
should like to push the five "Es" of exercise.
Professor Riddoch: A general comment
on that area. The recommendation for children is 60 minutes a
day on most days of the week and double for adults. That is going
to be called into question in the near future as well, as we feel
that might not be enough even so. The Chief Medical Officer's
report on physical activity and health comes out in January and
will comment on appropriate levels of activity for different diseases
and for adults and for children. The other thing to remember is
that physical activity is not just important in terms of obesity.
I know that is your focus, but there are 20 chronic conditions
which are impacted beneficially by regular physical activity.
We must not lose sight of that. I would be much more comfortable
if we monitored physical activity levels in school rather than
just waited.
Mr Grimshaw: One quick point about
your notion of the curriculum being crowded. There is one part
of the curriculum which every child has to do which is not crowded
and that is the home to school journey and back again. We feel
very strongly that the school day should start when you leave
home and the school journey really must be kept in sight. It is
the real opportunity for every child to have exercise every day,
whether boy or girl, and to take that habit into adult life on
the journey to and from work. Sport has such a high profile, but
however successful you are with sport, it will not tackle everyone
and how you take it through into adulthood. Really the two together
need to be held onto.
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