Regular exercise is crucial for all ages of people; however, in Hong Kong, with a hectic life, people seem rarely do exercise and they would rather buy time to sleep, a survey conducted by the Economic Co-operation and Development Organization, a weekly study hour for a primary school student could be around 55 hours, which includes normal school hours, doing homework and private tutoring hours. According to the survey of the Lingnan University in 2016, an average sleeping hour for a primary school student was 8.7 hours approximately whereas the recommended sleeping hours is 9 to 12 hours. They do not have enough sleep, not to mention they do have time for exercise every day.
Due to this phenomenon, a health promotion activity is going to hold and the target group of the promotion is the primary school students. Since they should develop a habit of regular exercise when they are young and MedlinePlus (2018) mentions that exercise can help keep our thinking, judgement skills as well as learning, which is beneficial for their learning ability. Because of the long study hour every day, exercises need to advocate during the schooling hour. Not only their physical health should be alerted, mental health is also an item to be aware of.
By using Ewles & Simnett planning model, the needs of primary school students should have a regular exercise. Human Kinetics (2016) states the overall physical activity level of children and youth in Hong Kong is D, only 18% spent more than 1 hour a day in physical ability. The priorities include the severity, time and resources.
127 our experts are availableright now
The aim of the activity is to raise the primary school students’ awareness on the importance of regular exercises. At the same time, the goals and objectives are to increase the knowledge on the drawbacks of having less exercise, increase the alertness on the importance of exercise and change their attitude on doing regular exercise. Three months after the completion of activity, more than a half of primary school students are able to tell at least two drawbacks of having less exercise, point out at least three importance of regular exercise as well as cultivating the habit on doing regular exercise respectively.
Based on the aim, campaign is the best way as all primary school students can get involved in school. The sources of the campaign are the human resources, such as teachers for leading the activity as well as different sporting goods, for instance, skipping rope, hula hoop, basketball or football, etc. Thus, obtaining opinion and feedback are the way to evaluate the campaign by designing a questionnaire.
The campaign may conduct a talk that Physical Education teachers in every primary school in Hong Kong are invited to listen the talk held by Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) and the campaign is going to implement in every primary school in the next school year. Moreover, the PE teachers need to hold a talk in their school for the students on the first day of school next year. The activity needs time and human resources as this requires a period of time for planning and promotion and PE teachers are the communication channels during the promotion. The following is the timeline and implementation of the campaign.
In the beginning, PE teachers from primary schools need to attend a talk of introducing the campaign in the coming January held by LCSD. On the first day of school in September, a talk needs to hold by PE teachers about the campaign for the students and the campaign will last for three months. In the first week of December, schools may need to evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign from the students by a questionnaire.
For implementation, primary school students are going to listen to a talk about the campaign by their PE teachers in the schools on the first day of school in September for details. The campaign is for all primary schools to set up different areas in school for different sports, including skipping, playing hula hoop, running, basketball, football and badminton during the first recess for 30 minutes from Monday to Friday and the campaign will last for three months, the Physiology Society (2018) mentions that at least 30 minutes is the recommendation for physical activity every day.
In the meanwhile, PE teachers could participate to lead the students to perform different sports. Besides, introducing the campaign to the students, teachers also need to mention the importance of exercise and drawbacks of not doing exercises to the students to increase their knowledge towards regular exercise before the campaign begins.
In addition, there is going to be a process evaluation of the campaign by using a questionnaire to measure the input whether it is cost-effectiveness, self-evaluation for the students to ask whether they are interested or not on doing exercise as well as obtaining feedback to list out the three drawbacks of not having regular exercise and four importance of doing exercise before and after the campaign.
Nevertheless, there might be problems and limitations during the campaign. For instance, there might be too many students participated and the number of teachers may be limited, this would cause difficulties to look after every student or if there are any injuries, the students may be neglected or cannot discover immediately. Furthermore, some of the schools may have limited place for the activity and will cancel in rainy days if the activity held in outdoor.
In conclusion, a campaign is going to promote in the coming September by a talk and implement in next school year in all primary schools. It is about setting up different areas for sorts of sports in the first recess for 30 minutes and the campaign lasts for three months to increase primary school students’ awareness on the importance of regular exercise and allow them to cultivate the habit of doing exercise instead of studying for a long time weekly.
