Lambeth-based sports company Moving Matters is helping kids stay healthy in lockdown by delivering free PE lessons online.
Whilst the company usually deliver PE lessons to primary schools in the borough, the coronavirus pandemic forced them to embrace virtual learning in their mission to help children ‘move more’.
With new figures from Sport England showing that 2.3 million children are doing less than 30 minutes of exercise a day as a result of lockdown restrictions, Moving Matters is focused on keeping children as active as possible.
As a father of two, founder and director Rob Wilkinson also wanted to relieve the home-schooling expectation placed on parents in lockdown.
He explained: “There are huge limitations for what you can facilitate for a child that’s at home and doesn’t have any PE space or resources.
“The main thing that we’re obviously trying to do is share stuff, so that people have that level of support, demonstration and guidance.”
Avoiding the Joe Wicks-esque style of lockdown workout and focusing more on the simple acts of moving or learning a new skill, they have carved out a new path for at-home sport.
With a different sporting focus every week, Moving Matters deliver weekly newsletters to over 1,000 people, incorporating YouTube videos and live workouts.
As a result, the group have been able to deliver more than 3,000 hours of high-quality PE lessons over the past year.
And with dinosaur adventures for early years, ‘Maths on the Move’ for primary school kids, and the provision of training resources for over 300 teachers, they aim to help all children and teachers anywhere.
Wilkinson said: “We’re just trying to keep it as simple as possible and be as creative as we possibly can.
“Some people have gardens and footballs and some people don’t. We’re just doing our best to support our community and our schools.”
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