A secondary school won a leading sports award after increasing levels of engagement around pupil physical activity by using a ground-breaking app developed by a London edtech firm.
PE staff at Crawshaw Academy in Leeds made significant progress in encouraging young people to be active through the implementation of miMove, which is used by children to log physical activity in and out of school. The impact of miMove was recognised when Crawshaw won the School Sport award at the Leeds Sport Awards, alongside fellow winners including Leeds United and England star midfielder Kalvin Phillips.
In real time, teaching staff are able to view and analyse the data of different cohorts through miMove, which is now being used by more than 130 schools in 20 countries around the globe. Founders Greg Dryer and Marcella Griso, who draw upon extensive experience in education and working with young people, say miMove can address high levels of child physical inactivity, one of the world’s biggest problems, by offering unprecedented support.
Among the teaching professionals to benefit is Ben Langford, Head of PE at Crawshaw Academy, who says miMove has made a positive impact on activity levels at the 1200-pupil school. Ben explained: “miMove has added a great deal of value to our PE offer with on average around 40% of pupils in Years 7 to 9 using it to track their physical activity levels and allow teachers to provide support on how they can remain as active as possible. We can see it becoming the norm as it becomes embedded into our school.”
For teachers, miMove gives schools live data with a dashboard of headline data while for students a one-way messaging feature enables tutors to support and motivate pupils, alongside a built-in assessment tool monitoring progress.
Crawshaw Academy intend to use miMove as a long term programme for ensuring as many pupils as possible are helped over physical activity, having first come across the app in 2020 when the world was brought to a halt by coronavirus. Ben said: “We agreed to roll out miMove and saw such immediate value that it will be used long term as a mainstay of our PE offer. The pandemic changed things so much but we wanted something which could be long term and not used only in lockdown.”
The credentials of the miMove team were vital to Crawshaw Academy. Ben explains: “Greg Dryer’s knowledge and standing in the PE field gives us confidence in miMove. It is not a short term fix but something with long term benefits as we can understand how our students are taking part in activities not just in school but outside.”
Winning the School Sport award at the 2021 Leeds Sport Awards was the icing on the cake for Ben. He explains: “This annual award is normally won by a year group or team which has excelled in their performance so to win it for the entire school and the benefits which the judges could see through miMove showed how we have taken PE performance to a different level.”
More than 60,000 children around the world are benefitting from a more positive relationship with physical activity in schools, thanks to miMove, which is backed by investors including Heimir Hallgrimsson, the coach who led Iceland’s victory over England at Euro 2016.
Greg Dryer welcomed Crawshaw Academy’s success. He said: “It has been fantastic to see the progress at Crawshaw recognised with their award. We are passionate about motivating more young people to be active so we commend Ben and his team for their progress to date.” Marcella Griso added: “We plan to build further growth for miMove usage worldwide over the next 12 months, with enhancements being made to the app as we roll out upgrades to encourage activity.”
