Everything Exams

I have never been great at field sports but have always been an enthusiastic tennis and croquet player and continue to be so. We often think of sport and academic study being two completely separate entities and I certainly confess that I’ve done this as well. Personally, I play tennis several times a week as it makes me feel good physically and it’s really fun but I’ve never really thought that it helps my brainpower in any way. I was lucky enough to go to Oxford University and one thing I did notice at university was that my contemporaries who had gained places in some of the most oversubscribed, competitive courses, such as medicine, were often talented sports people too. This may have been because playing sport at a high level made their applications shine, but I had always wondered if there was anything more going on. Me being me, I decided to look into whether taking part in sport could actually help young people in some way with their academic studies…

Something worth noting is that there does seem to have been a trend in both the US and UK educational systems in judging schools’, and therefore students’, performance using standardised tests, particularly in core academic subjects such as English, Maths and Science. As a result, investment by many schools, in terms of time and money, in subjects which are not used as the basis of any school league tables, such as art, music and physical education (PE), has been gradually eroded. This might turn out to be short sighted, but let’s look at the evidence.

In England there is currently no compulsory number of hours allocated for physical education, but there is a recommendation that all children should have a minimum of 2 hours per week. In a survey published by the Youth Sports Trust in 2018, 38% of schools reported that they had reduced the number of hours allocated to PE in the last 5 years due to exam pressure. and had increased the time students spend on core academic subjects. Surprisingly, students aged 16-18 were found to be doing just 34 minutes per week of physical education in school.

There have been many studies carried out in the last 20 years which have demonstrated that including sufficient physical education in the school timetable has a positive impact on children’s wellbeing. The research that I investigated looked at the effects on students of having between 75 and 90 minutes of quality PE provision per week. They consistently showed that children’s physical health was improved as well as their mental health with this level of provision. Children’s behaviour in the classroom, attention levels and attitude towards learning are enhanced with adequate PE sessions, all of which contribute, albeit indirectly, towards a child’s academic achievement.

The finding however that jumped out of the page at me, and that I wanted to share with you here, was that children’s cognitive abilities could be increased with enough of the right level of physical activity, and the children who were benefiting from these improvements were largely carrying out these activities outside of school. This puts it right back into the hands of parents and carers.

In 2002/2003, 214 6th grade students took part in a study into the effect of exercise on their academic achievement. The study took place over 2 semesters. For one semester, students took part in 55-minute-long physical activity classes and in the other semester these classes were replaced with exploratory classes in say art or computing. Each student had to record how much physical activity they did each week and at what level: moderate or vigorous, and whether they were sessions inside or outside of school. Students were tested in Maths, Science, English and World Studies after each semester. Interestingly, there was not much difference between scores for students in each semester, but this is significant as it meant that there was no detrimental effect on them doing more sport and less academic work, a finding that was mirrored in other studies. Additionally, and disappointingly, it was found that students only gained around 19 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise in their 55-minute sessions.

This was perhaps not enough to have an impact on their academic achievement. However, there was a very interesting result which emerged from the study; those students who took part in activities outside school of a moderate to vigorous level, scored significantly higher academically than their peers. Specifically, it seems that regular participation in moderate to vigorous activity of 20-30 minutes per day for 3-5 days per week affects children’s memory and their observational, problem solving and decision-making skills. Including the 55-minute sessions as part of the school day was a great start, but maybe it needed to be longer in order to have the sort of impact that was realised by students who were doing extra physical exercise at home.

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, not all schools offer sufficient physical activities as part of the school day, but even if this is the case, wouldn’t it be great if your child could still tap into all the benefits associated with physical exercise? Enrolling your child in sports coaching after school several times per week is ideal but is expensive. I remember feeling quite exhausted at times and rather like a taxi service as I ferried my children around. On and off, they did courses in gymnastics, tennis, ice-skating, horse riding, karate, trampolining and swimming, and with music lessons and orchestra rehearsals as well, we were often squeezed for time. Another approach might be to regularly incorporate age appropriate, vigorous activity into your daily routine in a more subtle and convenient way. 

How about playing dance music and having a good old jump around; playing games such as keep the balloon in the air for younger children; encouraging your child to join in with your workout routine, or even following an aerobic workout routine video online together. If you get a big parcel, popping the bubble wrap is brilliant fun; setting up an obstacle course in your home or garden and timing yourselves might inspire your children; using a skipping rope each weekday is incredible exercise and you could maybe keep a record of the number of skips, and track your child’s improvement.

If you do feel you have the time and finances to sign your child up for after school coaching, and they do not have a strong preference of which activity they want to do, then I’ve discovered  there are a couple of “super sports” which have been shown to have particularly clear benefits for children’s development. 

Karate

Several studies have been carried out in recent years on the effect of martial arts training on children’s physical and cognitive development. One such study undertaken in 2014 in Italy, compared the physical and cognitive abilities of two groups of 9 year olds who either took part in 3 karate classes per week or did little exercise. Learning karate has both a physical and psychological aspect to it and has three educational areas: the Kihon or basic moves, the Kata or sequences of moves also performed alone, and the Kumitè or sparring and combat side which takes place against an opponent.

Regular exercise produces biological responses in muscles and organs of the body which in turn must have some effect on the brain, and karate brings an additional layer of stimulation to the brain with increasingly demanding sequences to learn with the kata, requiring self control and concentration from students. Researchers in this study wanted to look at whether this type of multi-faceted physical education affected children’s abilities to think, as well as their physical performance. Children taking part in this study were tested physically using a sprint exercise, explosive jumping test and over an agility course. Their thinking skills were assessed using reaction time tests, tests in remembering increasingly long sequences of numbers and repeating them back both forwards and backwards, plus remembering sequences of blocks, and lastly, by means of a problem-solving exercise.

Children who regularly did karate achieved scores in the cognitive tests which were an average of 25% higher than the other group, and they were 13% faster in planning skills, and an impressive 45% quicker in the execution of the problem-solving task. This was just one of many studies I found which highlighted the extraordinary benefits of martial arts training. It’s not for everyone though! My son for example refused to go to karate after only a few sessions as he felt uncomfortable with having such direct contact with people he didn’t know well, whereas my daughter went to karate training quite happily for many years. 

If your child is not keen to do lots of physical activity then luckily, the second sport I looked into provides a gentler way in which they can access the benefits associated with it.

Yoga

In a study published in 2012, 200 children aged 7-9 years old from low socioeconomic backgrounds in India were given either yoga classes or more mainstream physical activities for a period of three months. At the end of the study, researchers concluded that the improvement in cognitive skills experienced by the group doing yoga was at the same level as that resulting from vigorous physical activities. Building upon previous studies, in 2016 another research team published similar findings. Two groups of 40 socially disadvantaged orphans in India were given 90-minute yoga classes for a period of three months, four times per week. Their cognitive skills were assessed before and after using similar tests to those discussed above in the karate research.

Both groups showed significant improvement in their cognitive skills, but one group achieved some impressive results: in the digit span forward test where participants have to remember a set of numbers and repeat them back in the order they heard them, the first group recorded a 33.8% improvement, and in the test with numbers repeated backwards, they made an incredible 43.51% improvement. Some of the breathing exercises in yoga increase the flow of blood to the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain associated with memory, executive function, and attention, and may be one of the reasons why yoga has such a powerful effect on our bodies. As a bonus, yoga has also been found to improve mood and reduce anxiety. 

From my research, there seems to be a wealth of research to support the idea that including physical activity appropriate to the age of your child and of sufficient quality, can significantly improve their cognitive abilities. This would ultimately make it easier for them to do well in most areas of their education. Great choices for out-of-school classes whose effects have been well researched are karate and yoga. If you have financial or time constraints which would make classes difficult, a bit of creativity, online research and determination could give a child access to all the benefits of a quality physical education without the costs. I’m still not sure I’m ready for karate though myself…

 References

1.   Youth Sports Trust 2018, Research finds whistle being blown on secondary PE, accessed 7th May 2021, < https://www.youthsporttrust.org/news/research-finds-whistle-being-blown-secondary-pe>

2.   Coe DP, Pivarnik JM, Womack CJ, Reeves MJ, Malina RM. Effect of physical education and activity levels on academic achievement in children. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2006 Aug;38(8):1515-9. doi: 10.1249/01.mss.0000227537.13175.1b. PMID: 16888468.

3.   Alesi M, Bianca A, Padua J, eg al. Motor and cognitive development: the role of karate. Muscles Ligaments Tendons J. 2014;4(2):114-120. Published 2014 Jul 14.

4.  Chaya MS, Nagendra H, Selvam S, Kurpad A, Srinivasan K. Effect of yoga on cognitive abilities in schoolchildren from a socioeconomically disadvantaged background: a randomized controlled study. J Altern Complement Med. 2012 Dec;18(12):1161-7. doi: 10.1089/acm.2011.0579. Epub 2012 Aug 21. PMID: 22909321.

5.   Purohit SP, Pradhan B. Effect of yoga program on executive functions of adolescents dwelling in an orphan home: A randomised controlled study. J Tradit Complement Med. 2016;7(1):99-105. Published 2016 Apr 20. doi:10.1016/j.jtcme.2016.03.001

6.  Donnelly JE, Lambourne K. Classroom-based physical activity, cognition, and academic achievement. Prev Med. 2011 Jun;52 Suppl 1:S36-42. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2011.01.021. Epub 2011 Jan 31. PMID: 21281666.