"Lombardia in gioco: a scuola di sport" Advocacy project 2015-2016

Aim: The aim of this paper was to present the advocacy [1] project\r\ncalled ‘‘Lombardia in gioco: a scuola di sport’’ addressed to primary\r\nschools. The current project was promoted by Regione Lombardia [2],\r\nCONI Lombardia and USR Lombardia with the support of the following\r\n5 universities: UNICATT, UNIMI, UNIBS, UNIPV and\r\nUNINSUBRIA.\r\nMethods: Both experts and supervisors were trained from a\r\ndidactic point of view and instructed for the monitoring process by\r\nthe Universities. Each expert conducted an intervention of 20\r\nlessons distributed in a span of 7 months. The assessment of\r\nchildren included anthropometric measures, the evaluation of\r\ncardiorespiratory, musculoskeletal and motor fitness, cognitive\r\nfunction, enjoyment and physical activity level. A satisfaction\r\nquestionnaire was administered to curricular teachers, school\r\nprincipals and children’s parents.\r\nResults: 249 experts with a bachelor in Sport Science, coordinated by\r\n13 supervisors, assisted the teacher during the curricular physical\r\neducation classes. In total, the interventions included 74,220 children,\r\n3711 classes and 327 schools. More than 150,000 data were collected\r\nand processed by the Universities showing that: an average increase\r\nof motor performance by 5 % occurred; positive results in cognitive\r\nfunction and enjoyment were found, enjoyment significantly and\r\npositively related to motor performance and its enhancement; children\r\nwere not enough physically active after school; a very high percentage\r\nof school teachers and principals and children’s parents were in\r\nfavor of the project.\r\nConclusions: For the first time in Lombardy Region, it was possible\r\nto carry out an advocacy project with a determinant contribution of\r\nthe aforementioned institutions: the Universities for the training of the\r\nexperts and supervisors and to guarantee scientifically the monitoring\r\nprocedures, CONI for the administrative and political support, Regione Lombardia and local authorities for the funding support, USR for the identification of sample schools.