The twenty bikes are used during curriculum time in school as well as during the ever popular fitness programme in the evening. As a specialist sports college St Aidan's has embraced the concept of X-Biking to promote healthy living and to help fulfil the government's agenda on health
Recently, the PE department ran a ‘sport for life day' for 10 to 14 year old pupils. The ten X-Biking sessions were by far the most popular, thankfully the PE staff have 3 trained instructors!!. X-Biking has also had a positive effect on our pupils who have followed an alternative curriculum as part of our ‘Living for Sport' programme which is coordinated and run by the school's fitness programme manager Debby Graham. This is a nationally recognised programme sponsored by Sky and administered by the Youth Sports Trust and the aim is to inspire disaffected youngsters. X-Biking has also been used as a powerful teaching tool for the examination aspects of the PE curriculum. Fitness methods and heart rate data are just some of the areas that X-Biking has helped develop
Since the X-Biking training in April the fitness programme has featured two classes a night. Having 11 trained instructors has enabled Debby to sustain this popular new addition to the programme. The local cycle club and football teams have all benefited from the classes and it is hoped that the popularity of X-Biking with a range of sporting clubs will grow in the future.
On a Saturday morning the School runs a ‘kids on the move' session which again focuses on promoting a healthy lifestyle and tackling the growing issue of child obesity. The X-Bikes have had a very positive impact on the children in this group.
For the 6 week holidays St Aidan's runs a number of sports camps from football and rugby to multi- activities. X-Biking has been programmed in for every camp and should be experienced by over 200 children by the end of the summer. Nicky Coulthard the sports camp programme organiser has worked hard to ensure that the children on these camps experience a wide range of activities.
The government is pushing ‘personalised learning' as its educational agenda. This is why X-Biking will become the main focus in our fitness and health curriculum as well as an important addition to our gifted and talented programme. The thing the makes X-Biking so powerful is the fact that the children and the adults are too busy having fun to realise how hard they are working!!! Even on the stepped climbs!
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