ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Leadership in Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1536664
This article is part of the Research TopicExtended Education - Leadership in PracticeView all 7 articles
Sport Activities in Extended Education -Their Leading Role for Educational Development
Provisionally accepted
- 1Zurich University of Teacher Education, Zürich, Switzerland
- 2Sports Office City of Zurich, Competence Center Physical Education, Zürich, Switzerland
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Physical inactivity represents a global challenge that calls for early intervention, particularly during childhood. Schools are uniquely positioned to influence children's physical activity behaviors, both in the present and for the future. The introduction of all-day schools creates an opportunity to integrate diverse sports-oriented activities throughout the school day. In Zurich, the implementation of all-day schools in primary schools led to the development and evaluation of extended educational programs, with a particular emphasis on physical activities, with the aim of contributing to holistic and sustainable health promotion. These activities included offerings during lunch breaks and before, between, and after lessons, aimed at fostering both subject-specific and interdisciplinary competencies. To evaluate the activities, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used, including guided interviews with school principals and extended educational services principals and student questionnaires. The evaluation revealed high levels of participation, particularly in physical activities like the Open Gym and mobile facilities. The findings underscore the leading role of physical activities including teacher-led and child-driven options in extended educational programs.During childhood, physical activity, exercise and play are essential for the healthy development of children (Stodden et al., 2008;Hulteen et al., 2018). Physical activity in both informal settings and organized sports is important for health throughout life, and the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends at least one hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day for children and adolescents (Chaput et al., 2020;Chalkley and Landais, 2022). School is an important setting for promoting extended educational activities, including physical activity (Sallis et al., 2012; Bailey et
Keywords: Physical activities, extended education, all-day school, movement promotion, comprehensive school program
Received: 29 Nov 2024; Accepted: 21 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ferrari, Bretz, Kress, Niederberger and Schuler Braunschweig. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ilaria Ferrari, Zurich University of Teacher Education, Zürich, Switzerland
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