Welcome to PTC Sports

Trying to keep children fit outside of school, along with their PE classes and team sports, can be hard enough but during school holidays particularly this challenge becomes even tougher.

It can be hard to think of fun and engaging forms of exercise and activities for them to partake in.

We’ve outlined some of the best ways to keep your children active during the Summer holidays.

Create an activity schedule

This is something that may seem simple and obvious but it’s something we often forget. By creating an activity schedule, you can plan for the week ahead the activities you want the kids to do, on what days and at which times. This is helpful as you’re much more likely to do something you have planned in advance and you can also vary what you do throughout the week.

Tip: Have the kids help you to plan so they can choose their favourite activities.

Vary it Up

When you plan your activities ensure that you add a variety of exercises rather than doing the same activity every single day. Doing the same activity, no matter how fun it was the first time, can become boring and may eventually feel like a chore.

It’s vital that the kids enjoy doing the activities set so they’re excited to do them. They will also pick up a larger collection of skills from various activities rather than just one.

Involve friends and family

Children often enjoy sports and fitness much more when they’re doing it with a group of other people, especially friends. At school, they’ll be used to doing PE with all of their classmates and any sports clubs with their teammates. During Summer, at least once a week try to arrange for them to meet up with a couple or so friends and do it together. Even if they’re friends are away it can be just as fun with family.

Gym or Swimming

This is totally dependent on the age of your children and what kind of activity they enjoy but this can be super helpful to motivate and encourage them. You can get a pass to your local swimming pool for children, swimming is a great form of exercise and also lots of fun.

For slightly older children and teenagers you could purchase a gym membership for the Summer where they can do various different forms of exercise or even take part in gym classes.

Keep active yourself

This final tip may seem a bit strange and you might wonder how this helps your children to keep active. But with them looking up to you as a role model, by seeing you maintaining your fitness level and continuing activities during the holidays, it will encourage them to do the same. You can also encourage them by talking about the benefits of keeping yourself active.

This step can encourage you to do activities together, this way you all are getting something out of it, and it can actually create some great family time.

The Importance of Sport for Children

Academics aside, Sport and Fitness are some of the most vital lessons taught in school, from starting Primary at age four to leaving Secondary school at sixteen.

There are a series of benefits that children gain from being taught and involved in sports.

Maintaining good health and activity levels

The most obvious and arguably most important reason to encourage sport is to help children stay active and boost their chance of living a healthy lifestyle. Not only does it help their physical health such as weight and prevention of certain health conditions, but it also improves their mood and can improve quality of sleep.

Reduces and relieves stress

It is easy to forget that even from a young age, children can experience high levels of stress which can result in mental and physical health issues. From friendship issues, bullying and exam pressure, growing up can provide an immense amount of stress in children and can present itself in so many ways.

Exercise is proven to activate the release of neurotransmitters also known as feel good hormones so it is an excellent way to relieve any stress a child may be suffering from.

Learn teamwork and make friends

Teamwork is often an extremely important and helpful skill to possess and one of the best ways to pick it up is through sports. There are plenty of sports that require teams and can help children learn valuable life lessons and are a brilliant chance for young people to make friends.

By partaking in a team sport they enjoy, they are learning skills such as working together and valued friendships. In addition, experience of teamwork is looked up highly in the workplace making team sport a great addition to their CV later in life.

Enhance academic achievements

Involvement in sports and exercise has been shown in many studies to have a strong connection to success of learning inside the classroom. Studies proved more accomplishments in exams, improved attitudes and manners and a better attention span than those who are less active and involved in sport.

Acquiring discipline and resilience

Along with the many other lessons sport teaches, respect for leaders, referees plus other teammates rank highly on the list. Knowing when to do as you have been told and not argue back to authorities is key knowledge to have in school, in the workplace and beyond.

Furthermore, learning to lose in sport is inevitable and a great way to teach children that they can’t always win and losing is okay and a part of life. This can be helpful for when they come to make mistakes or don’t do as well on a test because they will know to not give up and keep fighting and working hard.