NASPE Tells Parents And Elementary School Officials
"Recess And Physical Education Are Musts!"

RESTON, VA, September 22, 2004 – Despite mounting pressure nationwide to improve test scores and to help students succeed academically, the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) urges parents and principals to keep recess and physical education as critical parts of the elementary school day! Hoping to gain more academic time, school officials across the country from Longwood, FL to Tacoma, WA are curtailing recess and/or physical education in elementary schools. Unfortunately the availability of physical education and recess in many schools is often based on preset allocations for teachers’ free and planning times as well as state requirements for student time in the classroom rather than on child development research or health needs.

“Parents need to know that the elimination of recess and physical education may be detrimental to their children’s overall health and learning,” said NASPE President Dolly Lambdin, Ed.D. of the University of Texas at Austin. “With soaring obesity rates and increased interest in sedentary activities, a six-hour or longer school day is too long for children to go without breaks and without opportunities for substantive physical activity.”

While recess is unstructured time, physical education is a planned instructional program with specific objectives. An essential part of the total curriculum, it is the role of quality physical education programs to increase the physical competence, health-related fitness, self-responsibility and enjoyment of physical activity for all students so that they can be physically active for a lifetime. While physical education is vitally important for helping children learn how to be physically active and healthy for a lifetime, recess serves a different need in allowing children personal time to think their own thoughts, talk with friends and practice choosing and appropriately participating in physical activity. While NASPE continually and strongly advocates for quality, daily physical education to be a regular part of each child’s day, physical education does not replace the need for children to have recess breaks.

To assist parents in supporting this effort, NASPE has a position paper called “Recess in Elementary Schools.” Free copies of the document are available at www.NASPEinfo.org (Click on Publications, Click on Position Papers) or by emailing naspe@aahperd.org.

“Time for recess during the day may enhance overall learning in the classroom,” Lambdin added. “In addition to providing opportunities for needed physical activity, unstructured time contributes to creativity, cooperation, and learning about social interaction. In a well-designed and appropriately supervised recess period children learn how to cooperate, compete constructively, assume leader/follower roles and resolve conflicts by interacting in play. Play is an essential element of children’s social development.”

Lambdin pointed out “adults do not focus on work or sit in meetings for more than two hours at a time without breaks. Children certainly need similar breaks in their routine.”

“In fact, extended periods of inactivity are not appropriate for normal, healthy children or adults,” Lambdin said. “NASPE guidelines recommend that children ages 6 to 11 accumulate at least one hour and up to several hours of physical activity each day. This may occur appropriately in multiple periods of moderate to vigorous activity lasting 10 minutes or more.”

Children must be provided with appropriate physical activity options and taught how to make positive choices. If children do not establish physical activity habits when they are young, they are more likely to experience the negative impact of inactivity as adults.

Information about the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) can be found at www.naspeinfo.org. NASPE, which has been setting the standard for the sport and physical education professions for over 30 years, is the largest of the six national associations of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation & Dance (AAHPERD). A nonprofit membership organization of over 18,000 professionals in the physical activity fields, NASPE is the only national association dedicated to strengthening basic knowledge about sport and physical education among professionals and the general public. Putting that knowledge into action in schools and communities across the nation is critical to improved health and academic performance.

-30-