Daily Mile extended from schools to adults

The Daily Mile was the brainchild of the head teacher of a school in Scotland, who came up with the idea of getting her pupils to run or walk a mile a day.

That equates to about 15 minutes of exercise and it has been adopted by 10 schools in Guernsey, which have slotted the routine into their daily timetables.

Education Services’ lifelong learning manager Alun Williams has now taken the idea further by getting adults involved too.

Gathering youngsters from some of the schools who already do the Daily Mile, he worked out a route for staff at Specsavers to do around the business’s site at La Villiaze, and yesterday a group of employees joined Mr Williams and the youngsters for their ‘maiden mile’.

Specsavers’ events manager Tina Bury said that the company already offered staff access to Pilates, circuit training and yoga, and many staff took time during their lunch breaks to walk in the lanes around the building.

But the Daily Mile could be done in the car park. ‘Maybe a mile sounds too far, but if you can do it just in the grounds it doesn’t seem so daunting,’ she said, adding that it could perhaps encourage those who were reluctant to venture into the lanes to take it on.

Pupils from Le Rondin, Forest, Beechwood and Vale schools joined the staff for their inaugural mile, having become old hands at it back at their schools.

‘We just go around our playground,’ said Beechwood pupil Charlotte Griggs, 11. ‘The girls put trainers on, but the boys do it in their uniform.’

‘If we have PE we just mix it up with that,’ said fellow pupil Louis Day, 10.

Emily Gavey, from Forest Primary, said that sometimes their mile took place in the school field, but when it was wet the playground was used. ‘We do it so we are ready for the start of the day,’ she said. ‘We do the register then we line up to go outside.’

Vale teacher Emma Dorrian said that all youngsters from Reception to Year 6 have been doing the Daily Mile since Christmas.

While on some occasions six classes could be doing the mile at once, on others it could be only one. ‘It’s at the discretion of the teacher how it fits in most appropriately to make sure it doesn’t impact on that class,’ she said.