Neighbourhood Services

Leisure Development Services

ACTIVITY MOTIVATION INITIATIVE

EAST AYRSHIRE'S CHILDREN - MORE ACTIVE, MORE OFTEN!

BACKGROUND
East Ayrshire Council took a new and innovative approach to the delivery of Physical Activity to primary school aged children when it launched the Activity Motivation Initiative (AMI) in July 2003. The Initiative is delivered by 10 full-time, specialist “Motivators” who are experts in the fields of Dance, Health, Play, learning disabilities and Sport and act as positive role models for local young people. During term-time pupils participate in a wide range of specialist activities which take place both in and around all 46 primary and 4 special schools as part of a flexible curriculum and in the wider community after school hours, at weekends and during school holidays. In order to ensure sustainability teachers have been involved in experiential learning during motivation sessions and have received innovative themed resources and lesson plans to continue the activities within their school. Further support is provided via associated in-service training opportunities empowering primary teachers to make a lasting impact on children’s physical activity levels.

INNOVATION
The Activity Motivation Initiative is unique within Scotland and is attracting interest from other authorities and organisations. Indeed the project has raised the national profile of East Ayrshire Council through features in publications such as the Times Educational Supplement and the Sunday Herald and has featured in presentations to national conferences and universities. The AMI was also included in the recent HMIe inspections, Best Value and Community Planning Audit and featured at Royal and Ministerial visits in East Ayrshire.

EXTERNAL EVALUATION
Whilst internal qualitative and quantitative monitoring/evaluations have been extremely positive the project team commissioned an objective academic evaluation of the AMI in order to assess the impact of this unique approach within East Ayrshire.

The Division of Cultural Business, Glasgow Caledonian University, was commissioned to undertake an objective evaluation and analysis of the AMI.

• With an average 14.7 hours per week of physical activity the activity ratings of AMI participating children were over twice the national targets highlighted by the Chief Medical Officer (Donaldson 2004). This would indicate that the AMI is a strong contributory factor in transferring/assimilating the active, physical lifestyle message into the external lives of East Ayrshire primary school children.
• All evidence indicates that the AMI represents an exemplary partnership initiative that directly responds to national policy priorities. With evidence highlighting real strides in the positive promotion and change in the health of East Ayrshire children the AMI presents itself as an initiative ripe for development and extension.
• From the research undertaken, summative evidence indicates that the AMI is the clearest expression of an inter-departmental partnership project that integrates and grounds the aims of national policy agendas within the live environment of local communities. At a time when health concerns are a top political priority the AMI is an initiative that energetically tackles such problems and actively makes a difference in the daily lifestyles of the primary school children of East Ayrshire.

STRATEGIC FIT
The Activity Motivation Initiative delivers directly on the Improving Health section of East Ayrshire’s Community Plan, contributes to the achievement of key high level outputs in relation to children’s health in East Ayrshire’s Regeneration Outcome Agreement and links directly to the Children’s Service Plan, Hungry for Success Initiative and emerging Leisure and Cultural Strategy. The AMI is directly responding to key recommendations in national policies and strategies viz. Let’s Make Scotland More Active – A National Strategy for Physical Activity, Being Well – Doing Well: A Framework for Health Promoting Schools in Scotland, Eating for Health: A Diet Action Plan for Scotland, Sport 21 and Improving Health in Scotland - The Challenge.

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