Parents, Teachers, and Community: A Team Approach to Developing Physical Competence in Children

Abstract

Increasing children’s physical activity engagement has short- and long-term health benefits. Developing physical competence is a key component of children’s engagement in physical activity. The purpose of our study was to assess if a 12-week home, school, and community-based physical literacy intervention improved the physical competence of children in kindergarten and grade one. Four schools were either assigned to receive the intervention (n = 2 schools) or continue with their usual practice (control sites) (n = 2 schools). Physical competence was evaluated pre- and post-intervention in 103 intervention (41 female) and 83 usual practice (36 female) children using PLAY Fun. PLAY Parent and PLAY Coach tools measured parent and teacher perspectives of children’s physical competence, respectively. The intervention effect was assessed with repeated measures MANOVA to evaluate change in physical competence, with alpha set at p p p p > 0.05). However, teachers perceived improved physical competence for children in the intervention. Our physical literacy intervention improved the physical competence of children in kindergarten and grade one.

Keywords

• physical competence
• young children
• physical literacy intervention
• physical activity