Cliff Lane Primary School
“A great ‘brain break’ and gives children the opportunity to revitalise ready for learning”

Fact File

Where we’re based: Suffolk, England

Roll: 404

Our Daily Mile Story

Rosie Lloyd is the PE and Health Coordinator at Cliff Lane Primary School and tells us about their experience of The Daily Mile.

“We’ve been doing The Daily Mile for about three years now and although we do have a field at the school, we tend to utilise the playground for The Daily Mile, just for practicality and better use of resources.

I wouldn’t say we experienced barriers as such when we introduced The Daily Mile…maybe a little reluctance initially, with teachers thinking it might be onerous or hard to fit in, but once they realised the benefits and how easy it is to fit into the working day, it’s really not viewed that way at all now.

Also, we make it ‘free flow’ so teachers can fit it in whenever it suits them best. So, some do this straight after lunch, some just before assemblies and sometimes it can just be utilised whenever the class is ‘jittery’ or unfocused.

There are many benefits for doing The Daily Mile, such as the children are more focused once they’ve done it, they enjoy being outside, their behaviour is improved and it’s a great way to engage those pupils who aren’t usually very active or don’t come to any of the after-school clubs.

When the children come back in they are definitely ready to work again – and teachers can use it to their benefit if something isn’t working well, they can use it to re-focus the class. They literally down tools, get the children out, everyone burns off some energy and they come back to the task in hand, refreshed and ready to learn again.

We also encourage the children to beat their own lap count, so it’s not a ‘time challenge’ as such, but some of the children like trying to beat their own records, so if they want to record this we encourage it, but it’s certainly not mandatory.

The teachers also find that The Daily Mile is a great way to get to know their pupils and although often at the start of a year it can be a struggle whilst they are learning about individual pupils, they generally find that this time is ideal to find out more and connect with them outside of the classroom environment.

We view The Daily Mile as equally as important now as we did when we started it three years ago and every now and again we may have to give it a word of encouragement at staff meetings, this is normally when the weather hits a bad spell, it’s just a natural lull, and it only takes a gentle reminder for teachers to pick it up and like I said on the whole it’s warmly received.

Although we don’t link The Daily Mile directly to the curriculum, we do a lot of work around health and activity so we drop it in whenever we can. We haven’t been able to include or extend The Daily Mile to parents and the community although we would like to visit this in the future. We are big fans of The Daily Mile here at Cliff Lane Primary and will definitely keep on doing it for the foreseeable future.”

Quotes from pupils and staff

“I enjoy The Daily Mile because it is a good opportunity to go out and get some fresh air. It also gives me a chance to get exercise”

– Year 5 Pupil

” I love The Daily Mile because it gets your muscles moving and gets you fit!”

– Year 3 Pupil

“The children love The Daily Mile and it gives them a good chance to take part in physical exercise. It’s also a great ‘brain break’ and gives children the opportunity to revitalise ready for learning”

– Miss Emma McErlain-Naylor and Miss Sleighthome, Year 6 Teachers