Active + Healthy Children = Enhanced Academic Performance

"The goal of Daily Physical Activity (DPA) is to enable all elementary students to improve or maintain their physical fitness and their overall health and wellness and to enhance their learning opportunities".

Ontario Ministry of EducationPolicy/Program Memorandum No. 138: DPA in Elementary Schools 1-8

Overall, Daily Physical Activity in your school must:

• Include all students from grades 1 - 8.
• Occur during instructional time every school day in a variety of locations such as:
  Outdoors.
  In your school gymnasium.
  In multipurpose rooms.
  In your classroom.
• Involve at least 20 minutes of continuous moderate to vigorous physical activity every school day.
• Include a warm-up and cool-down period.
• Be planned and modified to ensure that students with special needs can participate.
• Follow safety guidelines as outlined in the DPA Ministry Resource Guidelines
• Represent just one of many components of health and physical education at your school. DPA does NOT replace your school's health and physical education curriculum.
• DPA is also required to be sustained, every student must be working at a moderate or vigorous effort level the whole time.

Participating in sports and doing daily physical activity is an important part of growing up healthy and doing well in school. Research shows that students who engage in daily physical activity demonstrate improved academic performance. Our schools need to be in the business of helping students reach their full intellectual, emotional and physical potential. With the Ministry of Educations overall Healthy Schools Program the children will be allowed to achieve a healthy lifestyle and will in turn be able to be more focused and productive during class and achieve their academic goals.