The Active Mile Daily Track is an online tool for schools that helps to monitor and record the amount of physical activity undertaken by pupils, staff and parents. It allows schools to walk, jog or run around their school grounds for a period of 15 minutes (on average the equivalent of one mile). Teachers upload their pupils’ laps and the data can be displayed on interactive school and class pages in the form of graphs and league tables.

The original Daily Mile was developed by a primary school in Stirling and is now practised by thousands of schools. It was designed to allow children to take part in regular physical activity during their school day and, as a result, it is hoped to improve the health, wellbeing and fitness of both pupils and staff.

The Science Behind Setting Realistic Active Mile Targets

Using an interpretive thematic analysis, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 teachers at schools which were participating in the Daily Mile. Teachers were asked to discuss their understanding of the initiative, how it was implemented at their school and any perceived benefits or barriers to participation.

The study involved a control and intervention school where the Daily Mile was introduced. Pupils from both schools were assessed at baseline and follow-up for their levels of physical activity, sedentary behaviour, fitness and body composition. After correcting for the effects of age at the time of testing, gender and socioeconomic grouping, the intervention school showed improvements in physical activity, sedentary behaviour, the fitness of children and their body composition relative to the control school.