My First 6 Months

Hello,

My name is Caitlin Stephenson and before I took on the role as The Daily Mile^TM Coordinator I graduated from the University of Bath with a degree in Sport and Social Science, and am a keen waterpolo player. I am passionate about sport and engaging young people in physical activity.

The Daily Mile is a free initiative that aims to get children out of the classroom for fifteen minutes every day to run or jog, at their own pace, with their classmates.

It has a positive effect on their physical and mental wellbeing as well as aiding their concentration back in the classroom. The Daily Mile is easy to implement, fun to do and inclusive to all. All children I have worked with enjoy it, and I have seen so many happy faces whilst visiting schools around The West of England!

I took over from the previous coordinator in June 2019, and it’s been a brilliant experience getting to know the primary schools in my area and supporting those already involved in The Daily Mile. It’s also been rewarding following the journey of so many primary schools new to this initiative; from the first school visit to launching it and hearing from them a few months down the line with the positive responses!

At many of our launches we are lucky enough to have Jim Gump come to provide an assembly (storytelling) and co-ordinate a whole school Daily Mile run. Jim has proved to be such an asset in starting schools off on their Daily Mile journey.

We have initiated on a few competitions on the way including parents in sports week. This was a simple initiative to encourage all primary schools in the area to invite their parents into the school to run a Daily Mile with their children and enter into our photo competition.

This was open to those signed up to The Daily Mile and those not, which was beneficial as it enabled schools to ‘have a go’ at this initiative and many then realised how easy it was.

Furthermore, we have implemented a Milestones campaign that is for all schools that are signed up to The Daily Mile and following the core principles in our area to get involved in. This utilises The Daily Mile calendar to track their progress and receive a school prize at each milestone. Schools can pick this up at any point during the academic year. Click here to find out more. 

In October, Wesport and one of our local Multi Academy Trusts (MAT), ELAN combined forces to put on a joint Daily Mile morning which saw children from each school in the MAT come together at Mendip Green Primary School to run The Daily Mile and try 2 new sports (Fencing and Disc Golf). 

All children also attended an interactive learning session about the benefits of doing The Daily Mile. In this session we gave the children a chance to come up with ideas about how they would encourage other pupils to engage with this initiative. This was a brilliant exercise and the children came up with some fantastic ideas such as putting on their own assemblies in their school, using a Daily Mile buddy system; pairing the older and younger years together and getting the teachers involved when they run The Daily Mile. Both the sporting activities and The Daily Mile saw great engagement and excitement from the children. This event was a huge success.

Finally, I am still trying to get into as many schools as possible, so if you are reading this as a parent or school that thinks The Daily Mile would benefit your pupils please get in touch, I would love to hear from you and support you as much as I can. I am looking forward to seeing The Daily Mile develop and grow across The West of England.

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