A PE and Health framework for creating lasting habits

I believe one of the most important goals for our Health and PE program is application. It is critical that we give students actual practice living a healthy lifestyle while they are young so that when they grow up they know what to expect and have the critical thinking skills to overcome the business and craziness of life. 

Many times the only time they hear anything about health is in that one class in high school and it is from a 300-page book. What ends up happening is they forget everything by the next school year because there was no application. Everything was centralized around that one class or teacher and they never took any ownership over those habits for themselves. We must help students understand the “Why” behind stewarding their bodies and then give them simple ways to practice what that looks like in the day-to-day. 

When we help schools with their PE and Health programs we build out a custom plan to deliver all the content of our curriculum to fit their school schedule and needs. But we don't stop there. We help them with a simple framework for how they can help students apply what they are learning all throughout the class. I put an example framework below as an example. 

Monthly Application schedule: (This is what you assign on the first day of the week)

Week 1: Movement Assignment (3-4x per week for 30 minutes)

Week 2: Nutrition Challenge (Write down 3-4 meals that week that were nutritious. We have a PDF for this that you can get on our website)

Week 3: Sleep Journal (Write down the time they went to bed, time they woke up, and the hours of sleep they got as a result)

Week 4: Put it all together or a Maintenance Workshop

1. Finding vision: Have them journal and think through what they are called to and then help them see the importance of health in that. 
2. Community and Partnership: Have them write down 2 leaders in their life (Teacher, sibling, coach) they went to press into, 2 peers they can build deeper relationship with, and 1 younger person they can pour into (Teammate, sibling, etc)
3. Schedule and Preparation: Have them write down their schedule for the week and help them see how health can fit the pillars into their schedule. 

This is just an example and is usually tweaked in many different ways depending on the school but there are a few things to note. We split the application up into the 4 pillars of our curriculum (Functional Fitness, Nutrition, Rest and recovery, and maintenance.)

These 4 pillars teach students that as long as they have a simple routine in each of these areas they will be in a good spot to sustain a healthy lifestyle. It becomes a simple checklist they can think through when life gets crazy. 

So each week in class we have a different challenge themed on each of those pillars above. The teachers review the challenges and make sure students are prepared as best as they can to complete it. At the end of the week, the teacher reviews how students did and coaches them on how they can do even better. Some students need more help with different challenges than others so this is where the teacher can give real-life insight and feedback that students can learn from. 

There are endless challenges you can come up with in these categories, Tweak this framework to your classes and students. Overall I would encourage you to keep it simple and and consistent throughout the year. 

Every school is different! Reach out if you want to hop on with someone on the F.O.R.M. Curriculum team and we can help create a custom plan for application that fits your school. We even have habit-tracking assessments you can use as well!