Abstract
Objective:
To compare physical activity and sedentary time among young children whose schools adhere to traditional (i.e. three outdoor playtimes = 70 minutes) versus balanced day (i.e. two outdoor playtimes = ~55 minutes) schedules in Ontario full-day kindergarten classrooms.
Design:
The project was part of a larger, 2-year cross-sectional study.
Setting:
Full-day kindergarten classrooms across London, Ontario, Canada.
Methods:
Participants included 113 young children (mean age = 4.69 years; standard deviation [SD] = 0.66 years) from eligible full-day kindergarten programmes. Participants’ physical activity and sedentary data were collected using Actical accelerometers worn for five consecutive days during school hours only. Type of school schedule and periods of outdoor play were captured using the Environment and Policy Assessment and Observation tool.
Results:
Participants mean activity rates (i.e. sedentary time, light physical activity, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity [MVPA] and total physical activity [TPA]) during school hours were similar across both formats. Participants’ overall daily physical activity and sedentary time did not significantly differ across school schedule type (p > .05); however, participants adhering to the traditional schedule accumulated significantly more TPA outdoors than those following the balanced day schedule.
Conclusion:
Neither schedule format appeared to be superior with regard to supporting overall daily physical activity nor minimising sedentary time in school, although children adhering to the traditional schedule format did accumulate more physical activity during periods of outdoor play. Regardless of schedule type, steps are warranted to encourage additional movement (and minimise sedentary behaviours) in the school setting by school and public health officials.
Commencing in 2010, the Ontario government initiated a phased-in implementation of full-day kindergarten in the school systems across the province (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2010a). Consequently, and as a means of enhancing academic, social, physical and emotional development, young children (i.e. those aged 3–5 years) receive instruction from both a teacher and an early childhood educator on a full-time basis (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2010a, 2010b). Children enrolled in these programmes typically adhere to one of the two schedule types: (1) traditional, which is characterised by two short 15-minute breaks for outdoor play (i.e. recess) as well as a 60-minute lunch period (includes 40-minute recess), or (2) balanced day, which refers to two longer nutritional breaks with two recesses (approximately 20 and 25 minutes), thus allowing for three uninterrupted instructional blocks of 100 minutes each (Eat Right Ontario, 2014). As of 2012, >50,000 children across the province of Ontario were enrolled in full-day kindergarten programmes (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2012).
One of the primary pillars of the new full-day kindergarten curriculum is to optimise physical development and health (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2010a, 2010b). With the goal of creating healthy physical environments as well as establishing a lifelong appreciation for active living and healthy decision-making, the programme aims to encourage regular physical activity participation (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2010b). While current research purports that physical activity levels among young children are variable (Colley et al., 2014; Vanderloo et al., 2015), what is evident is that children tend to accumulate low levels of physical activity and high levels of sedentary time while attending early learning programmes. Consequently, support is needed for increased activity levels within these environments, especially since physical activity has been linked to a number of psychosocial and physiological benefits, including childhood obesity (Marcus et al., 2000), improved cardiovascular health and favourable cognitive scores (Timmons et al., 2007, 2012). Given the high number of young children enrolled in full-day kindergarten (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2012), coupled with the amount of time this cohort spends in this setting (i.e. 30 hours per week; Ontario Ministry of Education, 2010b; Tucker et al., 2013), a strong focus on promoting physical activity during school hours is vital.
The school environment has been identified as influencing young children’s activity levels (Rickwood, 2013; Wechsler et al., 2000) and represents an ideal time to support activity behaviours among young children. Many opportunities for participation exist within this environment such as recess time, physical education classes, access to various fixed (e.g. jungle gyms, climbers and basketball hoops) and portable (e.g. various balls, hula hoops and scoops) play equipment and extracurricular sports (Wechsler et al., 2000). A recent systematic review by Rickwood (2013) reported that the increased presence of both positive adult and student role models within the school environment results in more active children during school hours. In addition, policies and practices implemented within the early learning environment (Pate et al., 2004) as well as the length of the kindergarten day (i.e. full-day [more active] vs half-day [less active]; Talley et al., 2012) have also been found to influence the overall physical activity levels and sedentary time among young children. The above-mentioned research lends support to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (1997) view that the establishment of health-enhancing school environments plays a key role in effectively promoting physical activity among children. Also important to note are the many positive benefits of physical activity on school- and academic-related outcomes, including decreased episodes of depression and anxiety (Barr-Anderson et al., 2007), improved levels of concentration (Hillman et al., 2009) and social skills (Ewing et al., 1996), and positive feelings towards school (Broh, 2002; Gilman et al., 2004). Consequently, establishing a more solid understanding of the differences in young children’s activity levels based on schedule type will help teachers, early childhood educators, and early year’s stakeholders in determining ways to support active play among children enrolled in kindergarten programmes.
Currently, little is known regarding the impact of differing school schedules on the physical activity levels of the enrolled children. Given the variability in outdoor playtime between the traditional and balanced schedules, it is possible that differences in young children’s activity behaviours and patterns may emerge as a result. For example, while children following the traditional schedule receive approximately 15 additional minutes of outdoor play, it has been argued that the balanced day schedule results in longer periods of uninterrupted play (Eat Right Ontario, 2014; Thirkill et al., 2014). There is also research to suggest that young children are most active in the first 10 minutes of outdoor play (Alhassan et al., 2012); consequently, young children in the traditional programme are afforded an additional outdoor playtime opportunity, a correlate which has been associated with increased physical activity (Hinkley et al., 2012). Having an increased understanding of these relationships would help provide an initial evaluation of the different schedules implemented within this new kindergarten programme on young children’s activity behaviours. As such, the purpose of this study was to compare the physical activity levels and sedentary time of children enrolled in the two full-day kindergarten schedule types (i.e. traditional vs balanced day) over the course of the entire school day as well as during outdoor play periods. Sex-based differences among children’s activity and sedentary levels enrolled in both schedules were also examined. A secondary purpose of this study was to determine whether participants were most active during their first 10 minutes of outdoor play.
It was hypothesised that those who attend schools that follow the traditional schedule would accumulate higher levels of physical activity during school hours given that these children receive three periods of outdoor play (and thus three opportunities to accumulate minutes of physical activity) in comparison with those in the balanced day schedule (who only receive two periods of outdoor play). As supported by the research (Alhassan et al., 2012), it is anticipated that the children in this study will accrue significantly more physical activity during the first 10 minutes of outdoor play in comparison with the remainder of time spent outdoors.
Methods
Study design
Participants of this study were enrolled in the Learning Environment Activity Potential for Preschoolers (LEAPP) study, a larger 2-year cross-sectional investigation of the influence of early learning environments (i.e. full-day kindergarten, centre- and home-based childcare) on young children’s levels of physical activity and sedentary time. A detailed description of this study’s methodology can be found elsewhere (Tucker et al., 2013). Only children who were students in the full-day kindergarten programme were included in the current paper’s analyses. All procedures and related material received institutional approval from the Health Sciences Research Ethics Board at the University of Western Ontario.
Participants
All schools across the city of London, Ontario, with full-day kindergarten classrooms already implemented were invited to participate (n = 14). A total of eight schools from two different school boards (all of which were involved in the LEAPP study; three adhered to a traditional schedule and five to a balanced day schedule) agreed to participate (response rate = 57.1%). Young children (i.e. between the ages of 4 and 5 years) enrolled in a consenting full-day kindergarten classroom were eligible to participate in the study. Written informed consent was obtained from eligible children’s parents/guardians prior to participation in this research.
Data collection
Data collection took place from September 2011 to June 2012. Activity data were collected using Actical™ accelerometers (Mini Mitter, Bend, OR), a suitable monitoring device for this particular cohort (Cliff et al., 2009; Pfeiffer et al., 2006). Participants wore the accelerometer over their right hip for five consecutive days during school hours only; school staff were asked to adhere the devices to the children on arrival at school and to remove at end-of-day. Staff were also asked to complete a daily wear-time log for each child. The type of school schedule (i.e. traditional vs balanced) was captured by researchers using the Environment and Policy Assessment and Observation tool (where the number of outdoor play periods was recorded; Ball et al., 2005; Ward et al., 2008).
Statistical analysis
All activity data were entered into KineSoft version 3.3.62 (KineSoft, Loughborough, UK) to generate a battery of standardised outcome variables. Reliability analyses were run using this software where only participants with a minimum wear-time of three valid days (in which 5 hours of wear-time constituted a valid day) were included in the analysis subset; 76% of participant files passed these parameters. Non-wear-time was defined as 60 minutes of consecutive zeros (Colley et al., 2014). Using the accelerometer logs and daily programming documentation provided by the childcare centres, researchers were able to create time-specific windows of outdoor play periods (including separate windows to denote the first 10 minutes of outdoor playtime) to establish minutes of sedentary time and physical activity accumulated during each timeframe; this protocol was similar to previous work which compared young children’s activity levels during indoor and outdoor periods in childcare (Vanderloo et al., 2013). To account for variation in the time participants spent in school, average daily rates of activity (across all intensities) were derived by dividing the total sum of minutes of activity on valid days by the number of valid days; these figures were then divided by average wear-time and multiplied by 60 to determine hourly rates of activity.
Pfeiffer et al.’s (2006) cut-points were applied to the accelerometry data in KineSoft to determine time spent in various intensity levels (i.e. sedentary, light, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity [MVPA] and total physical activity [TPA]). A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was carried out to determine differences in participants’ overall activity rates for the entire school day based on FDK format (i.e. traditional vs balanced), where sex was entered as a covariate. An independent sample t-test was used to specifically examine whether participants were most active outdoors when the school adhered to the traditional versus balanced day schedules. A paired sample t-test examined whether participants were most active during the first 10 minutes of outdoor play. To determine differences in activity levels based on sex across both environments, an independent sample t-test was also used.
Results
A total of 149 children (mean age = 4.69 years; standard deviation [SD] = 0.66 years; 58 in traditional and 91 in balanced day) participated in this study. Based on quality control measures applied to the data (i.e. 5 hours of wear-time per day, for a minimum of 3 days), 113 participants (52 boys) were retained for analyses (42 in traditional and 71 in balanced day). Average accelerometry wear-time for the sample during school hours was 379.07 (SD = 18.23) minutes.
Participants’ mean activity rates (i.e. sedentary time, light physical activity, MVPA and TPA) were similar across both environments (Table 1). The results of the MANOVA revealed that young children’s overall activity levels for the entire school day did not significantly differ based on schedule type, V = 0.003, F(3, 108) = 0.116, p > .05. In comparison with girls attending schools with the traditional day schedule, boys engaged in higher levels of MVPA only, t(40) = 1.96, p = .057. No sex differences in activity levels (at any intensity) were observed among the children enrolled in schools that adhered to the balanced day schedule (p > .05).
Participants’ daily mean activity rates (minutes/hour) during school hours across traditional and balanced day schedules.
MVPA: moderate-to-vigorous physical activity; TPA: total physical activity (i.e. light activity and MVPA); SD = standard deviation.
Significant difference between boys and girls within the traditional schedule.
On examining periods of outdoor play specifically, it was found that participants who adhered to the traditional day schedule accumulated significantly higher levels of TPA (i.e. 52.24 [SD = 10.41] vs 25.53 [SD = 11.62] minutes) than those who adhered to the balanced day schedule, t(111) = 12.26, p < .001. Paired t-tests revealed that participants were significantly less active (i.e. 16.31 [SD = 7.06] vs 19.15 [SD = 11.79] minutes/hour of TPA) during the first 10 minutes of outdoor play in comparison to the remaining time spent outdoors, t(112) = −3.27, p < .001.
Discussion
The premise of this paper was to explore differences in young children’s physical activity levels and sedentary time during school hours based on the type of schedule to which their full-day kindergarten programme adhered. No studies to date have explored this relationship. Given the novelty of the full-day kindergarten programme, the findings of this work are noteworthy; the importance of understanding the supportiveness of one schedule type over another warrants further discussion.
The chief finding of this paper is that participants enrolled in both curriculum formats accumulated near equal minutes of physical activity and sedentary time over the entire school day and that no significant difference existed between the two groups. This finding is interesting given that participants who adhered to the traditional schedule receive 15 additional minutes of outdoor play (and thus have the potential to accumulate additional minutes of active play). As a result, neither schedule format appears to be superior with regard to supporting physical activity nor minimising sedentary time during school hours. That said, participants were found to accumulate significantly more TPA during periods of outdoor playtime when their school followed the traditional versus balanced day schedules, suggesting that children enrolled in the traditional format engage in more physical activity outdoors, while those in the balanced day routine accumulate more activity during indoor play. Also of note is the fact that the participants were not found to be most active during this first 10 minutes of outdoor playtime; this is contrast to past research which examined children of a similar age (i.e. 4.0 vs 4.69 years; Alhassan et al., 2012). One possible explanation for this non-significant finding is that young children may not have been outside as soon as the recess bell rang (e.g. due to personal hygiene breaks, may take longer to get ready in comparison to older children), and therefore, little activity may have been accrued during this brief window.
Regardless of the type of daily schedule, what is evident is that physical activity levels at a moderate-to-vigorous intensity are low and sedentary time high among young children during school hours. While these results report that over the course of a typical school day (~6 hours), young children accumulated approximately 20.4 and 18 minutes of MVPA in the traditional and balanced day schedules, respectively; given that most participants were approaching (or were already) 5 years of age, it appears unlikely that this group will be meeting the targeted 60 minutes of daily MVPA for this age group, as recommended by the Canadian Society of Exercise Physiology (2012b). Similarly, with sedentary time, participants appear to have spent prolonged periods of time at this particular intensity (239.52 minutes for traditional and 238.74 for balanced day), a disconcerting finding in opposition to current sedentary guidelines for group (Canadian Society of Exercise Physiology, 2012a). Steps are warranted to encourage additional movement in the school setting.
A second finding worth noting is that boys who were enrolled in the traditional schedule were more active (albeit not by much and only just achieved significance) than girls. This finding is not surprising as most literature to date suggests that boys are more active than girls (Finn et al., 2002; Hinkley et al., 2008; Tucker, 2008). Consequently, this research suggests that this trend is both observable in childcare centres (as previously noted in the literature) and full-day kindergarten as well. Consistent with the growing body of research on young children’s activity levels, this paper underscores the need to encourage more active behaviours among girls, particularly in schools that adhere to the traditional schedule.
To promote healthy active behaviours within full-day kindergarten classrooms, school and public health officials (i.e. administrators and school nurses) should consider increasing awareness regarding the benefits of physical activity as well as working creatively with educators to create environments that support such behaviours (and/or limit sedentary ones). Teachers and early childhood educators are in a unique position to make impactful changes in their classrooms. Examples of potential strategies include incorporating additional movement and/or gross motor activities into indoor curriculum and daily lesson plans, minimising prolonged periods of sitting while indoors, providing access to non-screen-based activities/toys and inviting guest fitness instructors (i.e. yoga and martial arts). From a health promotion perspective, it is important that young children establish strong physical activity habits early in life, not only because activity levels tend to decrease as children age (Taylor et al., 2009) but that sedentary behaviours also tend to track throughout the lifespan (Kelly et al., 2007). The full-day kindergarten setting represents a potentially ideal venue to improve young children’s physical activity behaviours.
Participating school boards encountered a number of changes during data collection which posed challenges for this study. First, staff in one school board adopted a work-to-rule job action, which halted data collection with the schools in this board, and prevented the recruitment of additional schools. Second, both school boards undertook a phased-in approach to the implementation of full-day kindergarten programme; this may have influenced recruitment, as schools who had recently implemented the programme may have been cautious about allowing researchers to enter their classrooms. We believe these limitations decreased this study’s response rate. Finally, to capture sedentary time and physical activity levels during outdoor play periods, activity across all 5 days of the week was included and then divided by the number of valid days. Consequently, the levels of sedentary time and physical activity accumulated during outdoor play periods may be slightly overestimated. Future studies using a larger and more diverse group of young children and schools would be helpful as the programme is now fully implemented within the province, and schools are likely more comfortable with the curriculum. Moreover, future research may also want to investigate whether the activity levels of young children adhering to both schedule formats (i.e. traditional versus balanced) differ based on seasonality, given the challenge of outdoor play during inclement weather.
Conclusion
Physical activity is integral to the health and development of young children. Given that participants’ overall activity levels during the school day did not differ based on schedule type, this single study suggests that both full-day kindergarten formats result in equal participation rates. Low rates of MVPA and high rates of sedentary time were noted among children in both formats. That said, participants who adhered to the traditional schedule were found to be more active during outdoor play periods in comparison with those in the balanced day format, thus reinforcing the importance of outdoor play in supporting young children’s activity behaviours. Researchers, school officials and public health professionals must identify ways of maximising minutes of active play (and minimising sedentary time) during school hours.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the families who participated in the study and acknowledge the schools (and their staff) for all their help with this project. The contribution of Courtney Newnham-Kanas (project management and data collection/verification), Olivia Martyniuk (data collection) and Emie Angeles (data entry) is also appreciated.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada (CIHR Award # GIR 112690). L.M.V. is supported by the Frederick Banting and Charles Best CIHR Doctoral Research Award.