Welcome to the Facts4Life 30 Day Challenge!
We started this initiative to improve children’s health-related behaviours and help them to understand that there are things we can all do to help ‘Smooth the Path’ in our journey of health – a key message in Facts4Life’s health education.
Give your students a record card to set a health-related target to achieve over 30 days.
This could be:
- Eating five portions of fruit and vegetables (healthy diet)
- Turning off screens an hour before bedtime (sleep hygiene)
- Running twice around the school field (exercise)
- Finding 15 minutes a day for quiet time and reflection (mental health)
Or something else!
You can ask the children to pick a personal healthy behaviour target for themselves, or you could ask your class to take part in the Facts4Life 30 Day Challenge with all the children working on the same target. If introducing the 30 Day Challenge for the first time, it’s probably best to choose a single behaviour target that everyone can work on together.
Reward your students
For each of the 30 days, children record whether they have achieved the target, and an adult (teacher or parent/carer) countersigns to confirm their achievement.
The challenge can be completed over 30 consecutive days or over six school weeks.
At the end of the 30 days, the children are awarded a bronze, silver, or gold certificate (depending on how many days they have achieved the challenge target), and these can be downloaded from the Facts4Life website here.
Award Criteria:
15 – 20 days = Bronze
21 – 25 days = Silver
26 – 30 days = Gold
“Those who can”
To avoid the age-old criticism of ‘those who can, do; those who can’t, teach’, I decided to set my own Facts4Life 30 Day Challenge – so I could experience what the children are being asked to do.
Every day in June, I aimed to go out on my bike for at least 20 minutes. I hoped to do more cycling than this on most days, but I knew there would be days when my time would be limited. I also knew I was away in London for a couple of days, so wouldn’t be able to complete the challenge for every single day, but I still aimed to go for a gold certificate!
Now check out your second blog on this brilliant healthy behaviour initiative, Facts4Life 30 Day Challenge: How Did You Do? You’ll find out how I got on!
Good luck!
Pete Kirby, Curriculum Developer
