project proposal in physical education

Physical Education Project Proposal Template

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Are you a physical education teacher looking to propose an exciting new project to your school? Look no further than ClickUp's Physical Education Project Proposal Template! This template is designed to help you create a compelling proposal that showcases the benefits and feasibility of your project. With this template, you can:

Clearly outline your project goals, objectives, and timeline
Present a detailed budget and resource allocation plan
Provide evidence-based research to support the importance of your project
Showcase your expertise and passion for physical education

Get ready to make a lasting impact on your school's physical education program with ClickUp's Physical Education Project Proposal Template. Start creating your proposal today and bring your innovative ideas to life!

Benefits of Physical Education Project Proposal Template

When it comes to proposing a physical education project, having a template can save you time and ensure you cover all the necessary details. With the Physical Education Project Proposal Template, you can:

Clearly outline the objectives, scope, and timeline of your project
Identify the resources and materials needed for successful implementation
Present a professional and organized proposal to stakeholders and decision-makers
Increase the chances of securing funding and support for your project
Streamline the proposal process and focus on the creative aspects of your project

Main Elements of Physical Education Project Proposal Template

ClickUp's Physical Education Project Proposal Template is the perfect tool to plan and execute your physical education projects effectively. Here are the main elements of this Whiteboard template:

Custom Statuses: Keep track of the progress of your projects with two customizable statuses - Open and Complete, allowing you to easily visualize the stage of each project on the whiteboard.
Custom Fields: Utilize custom fields to add important information to your project proposals, such as project objectives, budget, timeline, and resources required, ensuring all necessary details are captured and easily accessible.
Custom Views: Access two different views - Project Proposal and Getting Started Guide - to organize and manage your physical education projects efficiently. The Project Proposal view allows you to outline project details, while the Getting Started Guide view provides a step-by-step plan to kickstart your projects.
Collaboration and Communication: Collaborate seamlessly with your team members by adding comments, attachments, and due dates to tasks on the whiteboard. Stay connected and ensure everyone is on the same page throughout the project lifecycle.

How to Use Project Proposal for Physical Education

If you're looking to create a project proposal for a physical education initiative, follow these steps to ensure your proposal is comprehensive and persuasive:

1. Define your project goals

Start by clearly defining the goals of your physical education project. Are you aiming to promote healthy habits, increase physical activity, or improve overall fitness levels? Clearly stating your goals will help you align your proposal with the desired outcomes.

Use the Goals feature in ClickUp to create and track your project goals.

2. Research and gather data

Before writing your proposal, gather relevant data and research that supports the need for your physical education project. This may include statistics on childhood obesity rates, the benefits of physical activity on academic performance, or success stories from similar initiatives.

Create a Doc in ClickUp to compile and organize your research findings.

3. Outline your project plan

Next, outline your project plan to demonstrate how you will achieve your goals. Include details such as the activities you'll implement, the target audience, the timeline, and any necessary resources or equipment.

Use the Gantt chart feature in ClickUp to visually map out your project plan and set deadlines.

4. Develop a budget

Estimate the costs associated with your physical education project, including equipment, materials, staffing, and any other expenses. Be sure to include a detailed breakdown of each cost to justify the budget to stakeholders.

Create custom fields in ClickUp to track and calculate your project budget.

5. Address potential challenges and risks

Identify any potential challenges or risks that may arise during the implementation of your project. This could include budget constraints, scheduling conflicts, or resistance from stakeholders. Develop strategies to mitigate these risks and provide a contingency plan.

Use the Board view in ClickUp to create cards for each potential challenge or risk and assign actions to address them.

6. Present your proposal

Finally, present your well-structured project proposal to the relevant stakeholders. Use a professional and persuasive tone to clearly communicate the importance and benefits of your physical education initiative. Be prepared to answer any questions or concerns that may arise.

Use the Docs feature in ClickUp to create a visually appealing and easily shareable proposal document.

By following these steps and utilizing the features in ClickUp, you can create a compelling project proposal for your physical education initiative that will increase your chances of securing support and funding.

Get Started with ClickUp's Physical Education Project Proposal Template

Physical education teachers and educators can use this Physical Education Project Proposal Template to streamline the process of proposing and implementing new projects and initiatives in their schools.

First, hit “Get Free Solution” to sign up for ClickUp and add the template to your Workspace. Make sure you designate which Space or location in your Workspace you’d like this template applied.

Next, invite relevant members or guests to your Workspace to start collaborating.

Now you can take advantage of the full potential of this template to create a successful project proposal:

Use the Project Proposal view to outline the details of your proposed project, including goals, objectives, and resources needed
The Getting Started Guide view will provide a step-by-step plan to follow when implementing your project
Organize the projects into two different statuses: Open and Complete, to keep track of progress
Update statuses as you make progress on your project, ensuring team members are informed of the project's status
Assign tasks to team members and set deadlines to ensure accountability
Collaborate with stakeholders to gather feedback and refine your project proposal
Monitor and analyze progress to ensure the successful completion of your physical education projects

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Research in practice
Open access
Published: 07 January 2021

Developing a comprehensive school-based physical activity program with flexible design – from pilot to national program

Kerli Mooses 1 , 2 ,
Triin Vihalemm 3 ,
Marko Uibu 3 ,
Katrin Mägi 1 ,
Leene Korp 1 , 3 ,
Maarja Kalma 1 ,
Evelin Mäestu ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2939-9890 1 &
Merike Kull 1

BMC Public Health volume 21 , Article number: 92 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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This article focuses on the process of designing the vital, participatory school-based intervention program aiming to increase the physical activity in schools. The program analyzed is Estonian nationwide comprehensive physical activity program Schools in Motion (SiM) that recently received European Commission’s #BeActive Education Award. The program has a good performance in terms of willingness of schools to participate in co-creation of program development, the high interest to join the program and zero dropouts, and strong partnership with ministries which enables to actively participate in policy making. Authors analyze the key elements of the planning, piloting, implementation, and scaling phases of the SiM program and share their lessons learnt in co-working with schools. The difficulties faced during the development process, the strengths and challenges associated with an interdisciplinary approach, and involvement of schools as experts have been addressed.

Peer Review reports

Physical activity (PA) is an important lifestyle factor associated with a wide range of benefits in children’s health and development, including the prevention of overweight, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases as well as supporting academic achievement and mental health [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. It has been pointed out that children who are not participating regularly in structured motor-skill-enriched activities may never reach their genetic potential for motor control that underlies sustainable physical fitness later in life [ 4 ]. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends children to be engaged in moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) at least 60 min per day [ 5 ]. However, studies with objectively measured PA suggest that only 4.6% of girls and 16.8% of boys in Europe aged 10–12 years meet the current PA recommendations [ 6 ], and these inactivity trends also dominate in Estonia [ 7 ].

Kohl et al. [ 8 ] have stated that “the pandemic of physical inactivity should be a public health priority”. At the same time, it has been stressed that multilevel and multisector plans are needed and all sectors outside the health sector must be involved in the fight against physical inactivity [ 9 , 10 ]. Reis and colleagues [ 10 ], after studying numerous PA interventions, have called for action-oriented research addressing the scalability of interventions that can work in real-world settings. They note critically that PA interventions, even when proven to be effective, remain short-lived because they fail to become embedded in a system once the research funds have expired [ 10 ]. Our experience offers information how to make the PA intervention programs more viable [ 11 ] and increase their provisional stability [ 12 ] - that is to prolong the impact of the intervention both in terms of its utility for target groups and its resilience: the continuation of the existence of desired social practices and their embeddedness to the social fabric at the site of intervention.

Schools are potentially powerful agents for changes to support PA levels [ 13 ] but there is a need for a flexible approach and empowerment, as PA promotion is not an inherent part of their existing agenda as PA in school is sparse and is often restricted with physical education lesson [ 14 ]. Therefore, it is a challenge to involve and empower schools to become efficient agents of PA enhancement and to ensure that the PA-related practices are embedded into the system. Similar to other institutions undertaking PA interventions [ 10 ], the schools face a scarcity of intervention design descriptions that: (a) would combine practice-to-evidence with evidence-to-practice; (b) would be scalable without substantial financial support; and (c) address the complexity of planning and implementation process. While there is documentation concerning the development and content of several PA interventions which are essential to enable other researchers to understand why interventions do or do not work, there is only limited data available about the development process of comprehensive school-based PA intervention programs [ 15 ]. Current article addresses the issues related with participatory, action-research oriented intervention program that was designed together with schools and what shows high motivation to join and no dropouts among schools. Authors - research and development team (RDT) of the University of Tartu - reflect the design process of comprehensive PA intervention program for Estonian schools – Schools in Motion (SiM): its planning, piloting, implementation, and scaling phases. Their critical self-reflection is condensed into the section of “Lessons learnt and primary indicators of success” that were put together collectively by the RDT members. The overview is based on constant action research, the discussions and revision of different data sources such as documents, progress reports/papers, individual diaries, and observation notes. To recognize critical elements in the design process program, several extensive brainstorming sessions and discussions were held. Collaborative writing by all the authors was applied where the perspectives and major insights were discussed, written, and re-written. We relied also on the documents and individual notes we have taken during the process which helps to lessen the distortive effect of retrospective analysis and hindsight biases. Although inherently and inevitably subjective to a certain extent and not able to convey the full complexity of the design process, the methodological approach we followed in this study gives a broad basis for analytical conclusions and suggestions. The empirical evidence collected during the action research and development process has not been published yet. The measurement of social impact of the action-research based PA program where the actions change continuously based on the feedback from participants, needs further attention and deserve separate article.

Current article is focusing on the design of the socially viable school-based PA intervention programs with the aim to inspire and offer tips for designing and implementing PA-enhancing interventions within school systems.

The framing of the program

The SiM program has been successfully scaled up, starting from 10 pilot schools in 2016 and reaching 110 schools in 2020. The SiM program is currently targeted at basic school (grades 1–9, ages 7–16 years). The group of schools who participate in the program is diverse in terms of size and location, involving rural schools with 15 students up to urban schools with more than 1300 students. The Estonian SiM program has received a great deal of attention in both Estonia and abroad. For example, SiM won the European Commission’s #BeActive Education Award in 2019, which recognizes activities in the field of education to encourage young people to be more physically active [ 16 ].

The Estonian SiM program aims to achieve sustainable change towards a PA-friendly mode of everyday operation in schools, similarly to “Whole School” approaches to PA-intervention that have arisen from Toronto Charter [ 17 ], and Comprehensive school physical activity program (CSPAP) [ 18 ]. We conceptualize the intervention as principal social change in a pro-sedentary school system. We consider that our task is not limited to creating changes to a few specific activities but involves multi-faceted action-research of possibilities to transform current meanings and understandings, skills and knowledge, things and infrastructure so that the practices are embodied during the school day [ 11 ]. Accordingly, SiM has been developed as a comprehensive and flexible PA program which supports the participating schools in redefining and designing the schools’ practices and conditions in a PA-supportive way and in offering more PA opportunities for students and personnel through a systematic approach. Participating schools are supported by seminars, workshops and skills training for school personnel and students. Moreover, easy-to-use materials, advocacy in changing the social norms, a supportive network and action research are provided by the research and development team (RDT) through an iterative process with schools and program partners (Fig. 1 ). However, no material incentive is distributed directly to the schools.

Schools in Motion (SiM) program activities from the research and development team’s viewpoint

Figure 2 depicts the schools’ perspective of SiM: the intervention field with inputs from RDT and stakeholders. The model is based on a comprehensive approach, outlining the temporal “venue” for the intervention: the school day as a whole, beginning with transport to school, and continuing with framing the structure of school day with its timetables. The model emphasizes the involvement of school personnel, students and parents; providing opportunities for PA and reducing sedentary time during academic lessons and recess; renewing the physical education; supporting changes in the indoor and outdoor environment, and the development of new methods and monitoring of the changes by the RDT (presented more concisely in Fig. 1 ).

Schools in Motion’s general model from the schools’ viewpoint

Moreover, the renewing of the physical education curriculum, where the sport-centered approach interchanged with the lifestyle-centered approach, is included. The renewing of physical education is an ongoing process but is not discussed in the current analysis. Finally, the schema highlights the role of different stakeholders and interest groups who should participate in the process to achieve appropriate, meaningful and sustainable results.

During the implementation of the program, this model has maintained both a structuring and presentation function, although the elements depicted in the model are not presented equally in the program. Throughout the process it has been important to support the autonomy of the schools, e.g. every school creates their own action plan and schedule, schools are free to decide their aims and actions while the SiM model and program activities provide them with certain tools and general suggestions. All schools entering into SiM program participate in one-day program training “Start-up seminar” with school team (max 5 members, including the school principal), after that several training seminars and workshops are made available for teams, teachers, and students. Schools are free to choose seminar or workshop to participate in depending on their own action plan, needs and main focuses. To support the autonomy of the schools and prevent overload associated with project activities, there is no mandatory seminar schedule for schools. Generally, most schools have been highly motivated to participate in provided trainings and seminars.

Development and design process of SiM

The development process in 2014–2019 can be divided into four main phases which main focuses and activities are presented in Fig. 3 .

The phases and main focus activities in development process of the Schools in Motion (SiM) program in 2014–2020

Pre-intervention

Stating the problem and the foundation of the move lab.

From 2014, we started to focus on the problem of children’s physical inactivity as a serious risk for public health and wellbeing given that, according to a national survey, only 16% of 11- to 15-year-old students met the PA recommendations every day in Estonia [ 19 ]. We stated that there is a serious need for action and we applied for funding to begin a systematic process towards intervention. The financial support received from the Research Innovation Foundation of University of Tartu enabled us to form the specialized unit Move lab in the Institute of Sport Sciences and Physiotherapy with the purpose of developing an evidence-based PA intervention program for children.

Literature review, analyzing previous practices and defining stakeholders and setting

Based on the scientific literature, we concluded that it is important to start the intervention from the youngest age groups, as the period between 6 and 12 years is critical in forming healthy lifestyle behavior and PA habits [ 20 ]. The analysis of the existing scientific literature indicated that one of the most promising settings to influence the PA levels of students is the school [ 13 , 21 ], thus the school was selected as an intervention venue. Schools are prospective sites for systematic pro-PA change because they enable us to engage children and families across the social spectrum and reveal a strong potential as central institutions in a community that provides participation opportunities for a critical amount of PA [ 13 ]. The next step was to map different components that previous school-based PA interventions had used, and which have a potential effect of the PA levels of students [ 13 , 20 ]. We concluded that it is important to focus on the development of a multicomponent approach as one component of the intervention (e.g. interventions only during lessons or in recess) might not be sustainable as they are not usually accompanied by changes in school culture [ 18 , 22 ] and the lack of support by school administrations can be one hindering factor in the implementation of the intervention [ 22 ].

Preparation phase

Deliberation of theoretical frameworks.

Special focus was given to theoretical frameworks that could have been used in the development process. A socio-ecological model [ 23 ] and components of self-determination theory [ 24 ] were taken as general supportive theoretical frameworks. Self-determination theory has been used in previous interventions to explain the role of social factors (e.g., autonomy-supportive and controlling behavior) on individuals’ motivation via three basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness [ 24 ]. The socio-ecological model [ 23 ] not only helps to target factors on an individual level, but also an interpersonal and organizational level. The planning of the development process was started based on an Intervention Mapping (IM) approach, which consists of a six-step protocol that facilitates a stepwise process for theory- and evidence-based development of health promotion interventions [ 25 ]. During this process we met the same difficulties that have been pointed out by other researchers – IM’s limitation is its time-consuming nature [ 26 ], and, as IM is typically applied to simple and uni-dimensional behaviors, IM is unfeasible and impractical when applied to multi-dimensional behaviors [ 27 ]. At the beginning of the process the main focus was on the PA behavior of the children and the empowerment of teachers. After many discussions and brainstorming sessions, we understood there is a need to broaden our focus and target additionally changes in school culture as well as general social norms. Therefore, the program framework was redesigned based on the practical guide of planning social change programs [ 11 ] developed on the grounds of theoretical conceptualization of a change of social practices [ 28 ]. In this conceptualization, the focus of inquiry and intervention shifts to social practices that are re-enacted and co-constituted by the actors and the socio-material structures [ 28 , 29 ]. The conceptualization de-centres the individual [ 30 ] and integrates the context [ 29 ], thus, partly withdrawing from the socioecological model. With these choices, the SiM program distanced itself from “Whole School” approaches and CSPAP. In addition, the aspect of vitality, i.e. how to embed it into the (school) system, which is crucial for sustainability [ 10 ], was emphasized.

Measuring physical activity

As there was a lack of objectively measured PA data in school settings, we carried out a nationwide objective PA measurement among 7- to 13-year-old students, where 819 students from 13 schools wore the accelerometer for seven consecutive days [ 7 ]. According to the results, although 24% of students met the PA recommendation on school days, there were 17% of students who did not meet the PA recommendation on any of the school days and 18% who met the PA recommendation on only one school day [ 7 ], indicating a significant proportion of inactive students who are at health risk. The study also revealed that the academic lessons were very inactive and uninterrupted sedentary time was dominant [ 31 ], while in physical education lessons only 13 min of MVPA was acquired [ 32 ]. As a result, only 3% of students acquired at least 30 min of MVPA (which is half the daily recommendation) during school hours [ 7 ]. These findings strengthened our understanding that the school setting needs to be targeted. In addition, small-scale pilot studies to test the applicability of active recess [ 33 ] and active lessons [ 34 ] were carried out. These studies confirmed that activity breaks in lessons and active recess are promising elements in the whole program to create PA opportunities in the school.

Setting main focuses and elements of SiM

Additionally, we carried out focus group interviews in three Estonian schools with varied sizes, locations, and opportunities for PA. We conducted 17 focus group interviews with 92 children aged 8–15 and 9 focus group interviews with teachers, school principals and parents. The aim of our qualitative research was to understand the perceptions of different stakeholders about PA in school settings and to identify how they evaluate the possibilities for PA, what the existing practices are, and whether they feel a necessity for change considering PA opportunities in school [ 35 , 36 ]. Interviews with different participants indicated that the meaning of PA was strongly based on a sport paradigm, which was considerably limiting options for moving, and was alienating some students who did not have a good relationship with sports. When interviewees talked about PA, they immediately brought in the distinction of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ students in PA. For example, sport-friendly families spend all their time hiking, running and cycling, participating in sport events, training sessions, etc., while there are those lagging behind – inactive children who are not willing to walk to school even if it takes 10 min, so-called ‘couch-potatoes’ [ 36 ]. Considering the school day, the students found that their PA is limited during recess, and accordingly a non-supportive physical and organizational school environment, e.g. lack of appropriate areas, facilities, and equipment, a lack of time as the recess is short (usually 10 min), and restrictive regulations (e.g. not allowed to run indoors) [ 35 ]. Describing academic lessons, the activity breaks in lessons or integrated PA with the lesson context were not common and were practiced by only a few specific teachers [ 36 ]. There was a strong willingness and desire to be more active in lessons by the students, while the main barriers for teachers to involve PA in their lessons were the lack of skills, tools and/or motivation.

The interviews indicated that overall attitude for PA is positive in schools. However, there is a need to initiate a change in school culture through: 1) creating new practices, e.g. possibilities for PA during recess and lessons by introducing new activities; 2) changing the meaning of PA, e.g. movement during the school day is normal and PA can support mental effort and academic achievement, PA is not only sport; 3) developing the skills of teachers and students, e.g. applicable techniques and methods to integrate PA to academic lesson and recess; and 4) providing supportive tools, e.g. materials/ideas for changing the physical environment [ 36 ]. According to these needs, a general model for SiM was elaborated (presented in Figs. 1 and 2 ).

Establishing a partnership with ministries

In parallel with the creation of the program model, negotiation with the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Education and Science started to inform them about the serious situation concerning the low levels of PA in children and the framework of evidence-based solutions was provided. Positive feedback from the ministries for initiating piloting was received. For more wide partnership a nationwide forum “Children’s physical activity levels are decreasing – how can we stop that?” was organized with the purpose of calling society, different activity groups and politicians to action.

Piloting phase

In 2016, the piloting of the SiM program received encouragement from the Ministry of Social Affairs and funding from the Council of Gambling Tax. The RDT sent out the call to participate in the SiM pilot program. In order to participate, schools had to send a motivation letter. Based on 18 received motivation letters, 10 schools of different size (per student), location (urban, rural), existence of outdoor area (yes/no) and number of students (min 87, max 936 students) were selected.

Although the plan was to run the pilot phase with 10 schools from 2016 to 2019, more schools joined in during this period due to the strong interest from schools and additional funding, culminating in 78 network schools by 2019.

Forming the interdisciplinary team and international network

As the problem targeted by SiM is multifaceted and complex, an interdisciplinary team was formed from experts from sport and health sciences, education, social sciences, psychology and communication. The leading institution was the Institute of Sport Sciences and Physiotherapy, with experts who had previous experience with applied projects. Two non-academic consultants were invited as consulting members of the team as they had previously led a smaller-scale project called Safe and Active School Day. Their existing contacts as well as expertise in educational settings proved highly valuable in, for example, deciding how to communicate with or to motivate schools (see Tip 1 in Table 2 ).

During the process it became clear that the instrumental distribution of specific roles/tasks was not functional as there were conflicting views regarding some fundamental principles about the logic of intervention. In the case of transdisciplinary projects with multiple participants, it is not surprising that setting priorities and agreeing upon the best approaches are complicated processes. Inevitably, the experts of transdisciplinary projects have their own priorities, understandings, incommensurable experiences, background knowledge and practical considerations that might be conflicting or at least complicate the goal of reaching a common understanding or agreement [ 37 , 38 ]. For SiM, it was the empirical evidence and close contact with schools that helped to clarify the framework of the pilot program. Discussions regarding the basic principles of the responsibilities of individuals, and about the social marketing and co-design approaches reached, led to the acknowledgement regarding the autonomy of schools.

Members of the SiM program team had significant differences in the paradigmatic approach and program design process. Therefore, it was challenging for the RDT to mix the different disciplines. Additionally, first meetings with school members indicated that the real life is much more nuanced than the academic disciplines prescribe. The diverse interpretations from numerous theoretical paradigms and practical angles were considered, all without giving priority to the academically “elegant” explanations – this is also called democratization of academic paradigmatic knowledge [ 39 ]. Thus, both the research based on the individuals’ motivation via three basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness [ 24 ] and practice-theory-based research (described above) can be found in mutually productive dialogue. In general, albeit through the course of several debates and contradictions in views, the team has learned that a transdisciplinary approach is a great strength as it will not allow us to make simplifications and assumptions based on a limited disciplinary view. The common aims to strive for are largely pragmatic – to empower the schools with knowledge-sharing in varied forms, such as mutual visits, seminars, training sessions, and inspiration days, as described in the following sections.

Additionally, the need for international collaboration was stated, and we contacted the LIKES Research Centre from University of Jyväskylä in Finland. LIKES had developed the nationwide PA program “Liikkuva Koulu” (Finnish schools on the move), which has to a large extent succeeded in Finland. Their program’s approach differs from many others as it is a so-called “bottom-up” approach, which supports schools’ own autonomy [ 40 ]. We can conclude that the cooperation in sharing research and practical issues has been very fruitful, supportive and necessary to solve problems and build up interventions that are not just regional but global. International scientific cooperation has widened throughout the pilot period with other Nordic and Baltic countries, and this is still an ongoing process.

Co-creation with schools and network building: school visits, supporting schools’ team building, schools’ action plans and schools’ networking

During the planning phase of the SiM program, there was intensive debate regarding whether or not to include school visits to the program as they were considered too time-consuming and intrusive. However, a decision was made to test it and, during the first months of the pilot program, all schools were visited by the RDT. This was an informal visit which enabled us to gain a greater understanding of the schools and their peculiarities. In terms of the program development, it turned out that such school visits were invaluable as they helped us to understand that each school is unique and that it is impossible to develop a one-size-fits-all model. It became more evident that we can support the schools by developing materials and tools, carrying out training, and supporting the exchange of good practices and ideas for different program elements but the schools must have autonomy to choose their own focus and set of tools and methods (see Tips 6, 9 and 10 in Table 2 ). This approach has also been confirmed by the Finnish program [ 40 ].

The central principle of the SiM – the schools are autonomous implementers of the program – means that schools needed broad-based and strong teams. To emphasize the importance of involving staff and the entire school environment, we suggested the participating schools form a 5-person team who would lead the SiM activities in school. The rationale of creating such a team was to support in-school co-operation in planning and implementing SiM activities, for them to support each other and reduce the risk of burnout, and to involve different stakeholders. During the pilot phase we realized that physical education teachers can be involved in the schools’ SiM team but there is a risk of the activities becoming too sport centered and too many implementation tasks being assigned to the physical education teacher. Therefore, when building the team, we suggested that SiM should not become the sport-related duty for physical education teachers but a whole-school endeavor for a variety of PA opportunities.

The piloting years indicated that it is essential that a representative from school management is included in the school team, as support from management is crucial to implement changes. As we promote structural changes, it would be very difficult to achieve them without the involvement of management. In addition, the active roles of principals and head teachers provide a general supportive climate towards PA in school.

All school teams participated in several seminars where they were informed about the aims and opportunities of the pilot program as well as the commitment it would require. School teams were also advised and encouraged to invite children, parents, and a broad range of personnel in the planning and implementation processes in order to ensure a broader circle of people who can carry the ideas of the SiM program and initiate actions in schools. Consequently, the workload is more distributed and the danger of burnout of active leaders alleviated (see Tip 9 in Table 2 ).

Schools were asked to create an individual action plan for the next school year on how to implement PA into the school day. As each school is unique, it was important to support schools’ autonomy through a flexible approach and enable each school to select elements of their action plan by themselves. However, as a general principle and suggestion, we encouraged them to concentrate on one or two main elements per year in their action plan (e.g. active recess and/or environment or active lessons). The aim was to deter enthusiastic schools from over planning only to realize during the process that they do not have resources to carry out all the started activities (see Tips 4 and 9 in Table 2 ).

Networking and exchange of practices (both good practices as well as failures) were encouraged and supported throughout the pilot program through different school visits and seminars for school teams on a regular basis. Each year there were at least two seminars for school teams whose aim was to support networking, obtain feedback about project activities and input into further development needs. Throughout the development and piloting process, a bottom-up approach and top-down approach have been used simultaneously. This means that the schools are considered as partners and experts whose feedback is thoroughly considered. At the same time different solutions and elements are developed and disseminated centrally by the program’s RDT. It can be said that schools in the SiM program are not intervention venues but active creators. The schools are also involved in the dissemination process as, in some cases, the experience and advice from other schools is more valued compared to the advice of university researchers (see Tips 1, 5 and 6 in Table 2 ).

Developing intervention tools for active lessons

During the pilot years, among other training sessions and seminars, schools were provided an opportunity to send 4–5 teachers to the training sessions of active lessons. Training seminars were designed, piloted and conducted by RDT. The aim of these seminars was to: 1) increase the awareness of the positive influence of PA on mental health, cognitive functions and learning; 2) provide new skill and exchange experiences; and 3) provide supportive and ready-to-use materials to the participants. The teacher training for active lessons consisted of two training days in order to help to anchor the skills and ideas learnt during the training and for them to gain confidence in using them. On the first training day the importance of PA on learning and academic achievement was highlighted. Throughout the day the techniques for reducing sedentary time and integrating PA into learning were modelled and the teachers had the possibility to play through various activities and discuss with colleagues where and how they could be used with their students. The teachers also received supportive materials and were requested to keep a diary of their practice for two weeks. After a month of individual practice at school, the teachers received the second training day, where the focus was more on the exchanging of experiences as well as getting new ideas to support the teachers’ motivation to carry on with the activities (See Tip 7 in Table 2 ). Both training days also included an outdoor learning session, as outdoor learning is not very common in Estonia. During the initial pilot phase lesson observations in schools were also conducted during and after the training period. These visits provided an overview of how movement integration works in real classrooms and is implemented by different teachers and was an important part of the co-creation process with the teachers. Selected activities from both the teachers’ diaries as well as observations were made publicly available on the program webpage, where the ideas and methods can be conveniently browsed and searched for.

During the pilot period, 192 teachers from 39 schools participated in the training days. The feedback survey of active lessons’ training showed that, after the training days, 97% of the teachers felt more confident in integrating movement into lessons and movement was more often integrated into the lessons – the proportion of teachers who reported integrating movement into lessons on a daily basis increased from 30 to 61% [ 41 ]. Due to a lack of resources not all teachers could attend our training, thus participating teachers are encouraged to share learned methods with their colleagues (see Tips 7 and 8 in Table 2 ). However, it is helpful when more than one teacher from the same school can participate in the training, so that they can support each other and plan how to share their experience with colleagues together. Out of all teachers participating in teacher training during the pilot years, 60% have talked about the training experience with colleagues and 16% have carried out school-based training [ 41 ]. Teachers reported that the supportive and ready-to-use materials received from the training have been invaluable in implementing the PA activities in lessons [ 41 ].

Developing intervention tools for active recess

During the first pilot year, the focus of the seminars of active recess was on introducing possibilities for how to make the indoor and outdoor environment more PA friendly, open up gyms and sports halls during recess, and provide PA equipment (e.g. balls, racket games, etc.) for the students to use. As outdoor recess is not common in Estonia, schools were encouraged to try all-year outdoor recess as previous research had indicated the positive effect of outdoor recess on PA [ 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. However, this raised the question of the outdoor infrastructure and affordances. Co-operation with architects was applied and supportive materials were developed [ 46 ]. Providing outdoor recess is a great challenge for the schools, and thus the change takes time – within three years two schools out of ten managed to implement a year-round outdoor recess.

The regulations concerning the outdoor recess are also crucial as, in Estonia, the weather conditions are cool and wet for most of the academic year and require appropriate clothing. This means that the students have to go to their wardrobe to get outdoor clothes, which is time-consuming and might require additional cleaning services as the students carry in dirt. Thus, the outdoor recess can bring additional costs that need to be acknowledged and pre-planned (see Tips 4 and 9 in Table 2 ). Some schools have made longer recess breaks in the middle of the school day and some school principals have made going out mandatory for the students. The latter intervention has turned out to be somewhat complicated because it may initiate complaints among the older students. In one inspiration seminar, a school principal talked honestly about the problems in implementing outdoor recess and how she solved them through negotiations with the students and re-designing the school rules by involving students. Now the students follow the school rules with greater enthusiasm because they have participated in the creation process (see Tip 9 in Table 2 ). This emphasized the necessity of the co-creation and supporting motivation [ 24 ] in multiple level – researchers with school principals, and teachers and school representatives with students, which constitutes prerequisite for unity and entirety for whole school approach.

During the first pilot year it became increasingly evident that students are an unused resource in the school, which could reduce the workload of teachers in organizing recess activities. Therefore, the focus of active recess training shifted to developing and implementing a training session for play leaders, who would organize PA activities and games during recess for younger students. At first play leaders’ training consisted of two consecutive days where students were taught the principles of organizing and carrying out a game, how to plan activities, which games to choose, and how to invite others to play. All participants also received a personal book of physically active games and each school was provided a set of small equipment used for active recess. During the pilot phase more than 295 play leaders from 39 network schools were trained. Based on the feedback from students and schools and to make the training available to more schools, in 2019 the length of the training of play leaders was reduced to one day. The play leaders’ system has been well received by the schools and students. However, during implementation, play leaders need support, help and guidance from some school personnel and thus one support person should also attend the training with children.

Action research

A co-design and practice-to-evidence approach needs action research. This includes constant research on the functionality of program elements and efficient monitoring of the occurring changes. The development process of SiM can also be described as flexible given that, after the development of a new material, method and/or seminar/training session by researchers and/or education experts, these elements were piloted and invaluable feedback concerning the applicability, necessity, sustainability and importance was received. Based on the needs of the schools, the developed elements have been either improved and incorporated to the model or discarded, thus, adjusting the program has become a part of action research. For the RDT, the important elements of obtaining the feedback and input from schools are different monitoring tools, e.g. a web-based questionnaire and self-evaluation tool for schools, personal communication and action research (see Tips 6 and 10 in Table 2 ).

For monitoring overall changes in attitudes and possibilities for PA, a web-based questionnaire was applied for students aged 10–16 years and school personnel. Moreover, a self-evaluation tool filled by school SiM teams was developed. Both tools helped to monitor the activities and changes in schools, plan further developments and at the same time served as an input to SiM teams in planning school action plan as all schools received a school-based feedback.

We have constantly collected qualitative data and kept in close contact with schools through visits and seminars. In addition to gaining insights, this closer contact with schools and (qualitative) research material consisting of examples or stories acts as a strong motivating factor for the RDT. Although this might only seem to be a positive side-effect, this could be a key driver for the RDT as the efficient intervention planning undoubtedly requires a great deal of engagement. Having occasional reminders in the form of comments, stories, and personal experience from school visits and observations is a highly needed impetus for this type of program. The collected qualitative data complements and helps to interpret quantitative data as the complexity of social situations and the multiplicity of factors makes it very difficult to ascertain causal relationships with only objective physical activity measurements or surveys (see Tip 6 in Table 2 ).

Main methods and findings from development and pilot phase of SiM program are described in Table 1 .

Communicative support and advocacy

In providing the necessary public support and awareness of the problem and potential solution in the form of SiM, public communication as well as direct advocacy have been very important. In SiM, we have largely framed the low level of PA as an urgent health problem. For example, to attract the attention of funders and the broader public, we presented children’s inactivity as the epidemic disease for the twenty-first century – it is a common message in newspaper articles and presentations. This framing has become an important rationale for the program. The medical facts and studies about positive associations between PA and mental (with a focus to learning achievements) and social health are constantly presented. In addition, the necessity for a more active class environment which is based on the arguments related to health effects and supported by medical experiments that observed the “acute effects of a simulated school day with reduced sitting or usual sitting on adolescents’ cognitive function and cardiometabolic biomarkers” [ 47 ] is highlighted. Via public communication of the SiM program, we questioned the existing normative beliefs that justify the status quo of long consecutive sitting in school settings, e.g. quiet sitting is good for academic achievement, PA means good performance in sports, schools who are oriented to high academic performance do not deal with activity breaks during lessons, etc. In so doing, we tried to avoid the purely medicalized framing [ 48 ] and represent the logic for intervention as social, psychological and cultural (see Tips 2 and 3 in Table 2 ). Additionally, the international Physical Activity Report Card [ 49 ] was developed in 2016 [ 50 ] and 2018 [ 51 ], accompanying a lot of media attention.

In 2018, a SiM webpage ( www.liikumakutsuvkool.ee ) was launched to communicate SiM activities and principles to a broader audience, such as schools outside the network, different stakeholders and interest groups. The webpage includes an overview of all SiM elements, tools and materials, coming events and a “Bank of Ideas” which is a database of methods, ideas and games on how to add PA to lessons, recess and environment.

Partnership with ministries and other partners

There are also numerous interest groups and stakeholders that are strongly related to the SiM’s aims and activities. To initiate major changes in schools and ensure that the changes are sustainable, schools need support from municipalities and parents. Thus, it is necessary that the general norms in the society support the activities of the schools, that parents and local governments are aware of multiple benefits to health and wellbeing that physically active school day can evoke, and that the stakeholders are supportive of the program. In parallel with SiM program development, the RDT has been searching for and initiating co-operation with different interest groups, e.g. ministries, municipalities, and governmental institutions responsible for public health and traffic safety, architects, sport associations, higher education institutions, etc. Co-operation has been established with some municipalities that have provided additional support for local schools and initiated the process of joining the network. On a state level our main partner throughout the development process has been the Ministry of Social Affairs and strong support towards our activities has been expressed by the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Culture.

RDT has devoted significant resources to communication for successful results in advocacy and in creating a meaningful partnership with authorities and organizations. This was achieved by creating and using the means of strategic communication, focusing on message creation and societal dialogue, designing and implementing events and other communication plans, finding outputs in the media and social media, and using a wide variety of other communication tools.

Lessons learnt and primary indicators of success

The primary indicators of success of SiM program for RDT are the willingness of schools to participate in co-creation of program development, the program popularity among schools and no dropout schools, strong partnership with ministries which enables to actively participate in policy making. All these tendencies help to pave the school culture which supports the physical activity of children.

Deriving from diverse phases and activities in the design process, we can offer some tips and suggestions that have been evaluated and tested during the SiM program. As the local contexts for a school-related PA-program are diverse, we have principally selected tactical suggestions that are not highly context-dependent, such as the nuances of education systems or existing PA practices among children.

The evaluation of the SiM program can be currently done mainly in terms of outputs not in terms outcomes nor long term social impact. The reflection of the program design process provided information about how to create the intervening materials, environments etc. in close co-operation with participants themselves, considering the complexity of their everyday life – the natural site where the PA-initiatives have to embed. Authors argue that this question is under-discussion so far among scholars and practitioners [ 52 ].

The SiM program utilized main principles of action research, i.e. each school got own performance report containing the results of web survey among school staff and students. These reports were provided to all participating schools very quickly. All schools also got a feedback to their action plans. Thus, the interaction and exchange of the feedback was mutual and iterative. There are some primary outcomes indicating the success of this participatory approach – no school have dropped out of the program, schools have completed action plans, school principals have expressed their interest to make systemic pro-PA changes in their schools. Also, SiM has strong co-operation with relevant ministries who ask contribution to the improvements to the regulations and educational, health and sport policies strategies regarding the school life. Numerous schools express their interest to join to the SiM program although this program does not offer any material incentives. In conclusion, we can consider the SiM program as vital.

A full discussion of program effectiveness lies beyond the scope of this article as the main aim of current article is to describe the design process. All measurements and studies conducted have given input to the development process, and have not yet been published. However, there is a plan to fill this gap in near future.

Future challenges

From 2019 the program has moved to the next step of scaling up the program for the newcomers and maintaining the changes SiM has initiated in the schools who have entered to the program in earlier years. The sustainability of the intervention is crucial for the success. The program should address the spillover effects that threaten to diminish the PA-related changes despite the good will of (leading) implementers. Consequently, not only the effectiveness promised by the trials but also the prospective vitality of the suggested intervention in the “natural” settings have to be addressed in the design of the program, as Reis et al. [ 10 ] have stressed in their seminal article. An important condition for the sustainability is the wide partnership, even power coalition [ 11 ] between schools, local governments, ministries, professional institutions, city planners, architects, sport institutions, universities who see the physically active school culture as new normality and act – with everybody within own functional roles – according to this normality.

Despite the positive acceptance of SiM by schools, there are still many challenges ahead. The RDT has analyzed shortages in the program and continues to work out solutions. The further development has to be more age specific. Outdoor recess and playing during recess are attractive for younger children but not appealing for the older students aged 13–16, who are the most physically inactive group in basic schools. The training of new skills among teachers has to involve not only the development of personal skills, but also knowledge transfer to the other teachers and staff members at the in-school training sessions, inspiration seminars, regional training networks or teacher training institutions. The PA-friendly school concept also considers teachers’ and principals’ health and PA, and students’ families’ PA improvement. The social norms that discourage active transport from home to school as a sign of parental negligence are also a great challenge to meet via public communication during the coming years. The further development of SiM and its scaling-up will proceed in parallel, accompanied by action research. In addition, the rapid growth of participants requires creating a sustainable model for managing the network, providing enough support for participating schools and, concurrently, to keep the main principle for co-creative and collaborative approach throughout scaling-up process.

Conclusions

The development and implementation of a comprehensive school-based PA intervention is a great challenge as the school is a complex social network comprising different interests, stakeholders and aims. We have managed to develop a flexible and comprehensive school-based PA program which has been well received by both schools and overall society. However, many challenges still lie ahead. We believe that sharing our experience – both our successes as well as the difficulties faced, and lessons learnt – will help to promote the design and implementation PA-enhancing interventions within school system and fight the overwhelming physical inactivity epidemic worldwide.

Availability of data and materials

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed for the current study.

Abbreviations

Schools in Motion

Physical activity;

World Health Organization

Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity

Research and development team

Socio-ecological model

Self-determination theory

Intervention Mapping

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all the schools and partners participating in the Schools in Motion program. The authors also want to acknowledge PhD Aave Hannus and PhD Eva-Maria Riso for their input in the program-design process.

During the period of 2014–2019, program development was supported by the Research and Innovation Foundation of University of Tartu, the Estonian Science Foundation program “TerVe”, the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Council of Gambling Tax, the Ministry of Education and Science, Tartu City, the association Sport for All, and the Estonian Research Council, grant number IUT 20–58. From 2020, the program is supported by project “Increasing physical activity of schoolchildren” funded by EEA grants under the program “Local Development and Poverty Reduction”, co-financed by the Ministry of Social Affairs and the University of Tartu. The funders gave financial support for the development of the program. The funders were not involved in collection, analysis, and interpretation of data or in writing the manuscript.

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KeM, MeK, TV, MU, LK and KaM conceptualized and designed the project and also drafted the manuscript. KeM, MeK, TV, MU, LK, KaM, MaK and EM reviewed and edited the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Mooses, K., Vihalemm, T., Uibu, M. et al. Developing a comprehensive school-based physical activity program with flexible design – from pilot to national program. BMC Public Health 21 , 92 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-10111-x

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-10111-x

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Proposal for an Enhanced Physical Education Program in the Primary School: Evaluation of Feasibility and Effectiveness in Improving Physical Skills and Fitness

PMID: 27172612
DOI: 10.1123/jpah.2015-0694

Background: A large proportion of children do not reach the recommended levels of physical activity for health. A quasiexperimental study with nonrandom assignment was performed to evaluate the effectiveness and feasibility of a school-based physical education intervention aimed at increasing the levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA).

Methods: Ten classes from 4 primary schools, including 241 children aged 8 to 10 years, were recruited. The experimental group (n = 97) received 4 additional sessions/week of 60 minutes of MVPA for 8 months. The control group (n = 135) continued their standard program (2 sessions of 50 minutes/week). Motor abilities (standing long jump, handgrip strength, Harre circuit, sit and reach), physical fitness (Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Level-1), anthropometric measures (body mass index, waist to height ratio), and self-efficacy (Perceived Physical Ability Scale for Children) were evaluated at baseline and after the intervention.

Results: The experimental group significantly improved in the Harre circuit both in males (P < .001) and females (P < .01), whereas physical fitness test improved only in males (P < .001). Males in the experimental group improved the perception of self-efficacy in coordinative abilities (P = .017).

Conclusions: The proposed school-based MVPA program showed effectiveness and feasibility. The differences observed by gender highlight the need to use different strategies to increase the involvement of all the participants.

Keywords: body weight; exercise performance; physical activity; youth.

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Fact-checking warnings from Democrats about Project 2025 and Donald Trump

This fact check originally appeared on PolitiFact .

Project 2025 has a starring role in this week’s Democratic National Convention.

And it was front and center on Night 1.

WATCH: Hauling large copy of Project 2025, Michigan state Sen. McMorrow speaks at 2024 DNC

“This is Project 2025,” Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, said as she laid a hardbound copy of the 900-page document on the lectern. “Over the next four nights, you are going to hear a lot about what is in this 900-page document. Why? Because this is the Republican blueprint for a second Trump term.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has warned Americans about “Trump’s Project 2025” agenda — even though former President Donald Trump doesn’t claim the conservative presidential transition document.

“Donald Trump wants to take our country backward,” Harris said July 23 in Milwaukee. “He and his extreme Project 2025 agenda will weaken the middle class. Like, we know we got to take this seriously, and can you believe they put that thing in writing?”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, has joined in on the talking point.

“Don’t believe (Trump) when he’s playing dumb about this Project 2025. He knows exactly what it’ll do,” Walz said Aug. 9 in Glendale, Arizona.

Trump’s campaign has worked to build distance from the project, which the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, led with contributions from dozens of conservative groups.

Much of the plan calls for extensive executive-branch overhauls and draws on both long-standing conservative principles, such as tax cuts, and more recent culture war issues. It lays out recommendations for disbanding the Commerce and Education departments, eliminating certain climate protections and consolidating more power to the president.

Project 2025 offers a sweeping vision for a Republican-led executive branch, and some of its policies mirror Trump’s 2024 agenda, But Harris and her presidential campaign have at times gone too far in describing what the project calls for and how closely the plans overlap with Trump’s campaign.

PolitiFact researched Harris’ warnings about how the plan would affect reproductive rights, federal entitlement programs and education, just as we did for President Joe Biden’s Project 2025 rhetoric. Here’s what the project does and doesn’t call for, and how it squares with Trump’s positions.

Are Trump and Project 2025 connected?

To distance himself from Project 2025 amid the Democratic attacks, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he “knows nothing” about it and has “no idea” who is in charge of it. (CNN identified at least 140 former advisers from the Trump administration who have been involved.)

The Heritage Foundation sought contributions from more than 100 conservative organizations for its policy vision for the next Republican presidency, which was published in 2023.

Project 2025 is now winding down some of its policy operations, and director Paul Dans, a former Trump administration official, is stepping down, The Washington Post reported July 30. Trump campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita denounced the document.

WATCH: A look at the Project 2025 plan to reshape government and Trump’s links to its authors

However, Project 2025 contributors include a number of high-ranking officials from Trump’s first administration, including former White House adviser Peter Navarro and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.

A recently released recording of Russell Vought, a Project 2025 author and the former director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, showed Vought saying Trump’s “very supportive of what we do.” He said Trump was only distancing himself because Democrats were making a bogeyman out of the document.

Project 2025 wouldn’t ban abortion outright, but would curtail access

The Harris campaign shared a graphic on X that claimed “Trump’s Project 2025 plan for workers” would “go after birth control and ban abortion nationwide.”

The plan doesn’t call to ban abortion nationwide, though its recommendations could curtail some contraceptives and limit abortion access.

What’s known about Trump’s abortion agenda neither lines up with Harris’ description nor Project 2025’s wish list.

Project 2025 says the Department of Health and Human Services Department should “return to being known as the Department of Life by explicitly rejecting the notion that abortion is health care.”

It recommends that the Food and Drug Administration reverse its 2000 approval of mifepristone, the first pill taken in a two-drug regimen for a medication abortion. Medication is the most common form of abortion in the U.S. — accounting for around 63 percent in 2023.

If mifepristone were to remain approved, Project 2025 recommends new rules, such as cutting its use from 10 weeks into pregnancy to seven. It would have to be provided to patients in person — part of the group’s efforts to limit access to the drug by mail. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a legal challenge to mifepristone’s FDA approval over procedural grounds.

WATCH: Trump’s plans for health care and reproductive rights if he returns to White House The manual also calls for the Justice Department to enforce the 1873 Comstock Act on mifepristone, which bans the mailing of “obscene” materials. Abortion access supporters fear that a strict interpretation of the law could go further to ban mailing the materials used in procedural abortions, such as surgical instruments and equipment.

The plan proposes withholding federal money from states that don’t report to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention how many abortions take place within their borders. The plan also would prohibit abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood, from receiving Medicaid funds. It also calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that the training of medical professionals, including doctors and nurses, omits abortion training.

The document says some forms of emergency contraception — particularly Ella, a pill that can be taken within five days of unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy — should be excluded from no-cost coverage. The Affordable Care Act requires most private health insurers to cover recommended preventive services, which involves a range of birth control methods, including emergency contraception.

Trump has recently said states should decide abortion regulations and that he wouldn’t block access to contraceptives. Trump said during his June 27 debate with Biden that he wouldn’t ban mifepristone after the Supreme Court “approved” it. But the court rejected the lawsuit based on standing, not the case’s merits. He has not weighed in on the Comstock Act or said whether he supports it being used to block abortion medication, or other kinds of abortions.

Project 2025 doesn’t call for cutting Social Security, but proposes some changes to Medicare

“When you read (Project 2025),” Harris told a crowd July 23 in Wisconsin, “you will see, Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare.”

The Project 2025 document does not call for Social Security cuts. None of its 10 references to Social Security addresses plans for cutting the program.

Harris also misleads about Trump’s Social Security views.

In his earlier campaigns and before he was a politician, Trump said about a half-dozen times that he’s open to major overhauls of Social Security, including cuts and privatization. More recently, in a March 2024 CNBC interview, Trump said of entitlement programs such as Social Security, “There’s a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting.” However, he quickly walked that statement back, and his CNBC comment stands at odds with essentially everything else Trump has said during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump’s campaign website says that not “a single penny” should be cut from Social Security. We rated Harris’ claim that Trump intends to cut Social Security Mostly False.

Project 2025 does propose changes to Medicare, including making Medicare Advantage, the private insurance offering in Medicare, the “default” enrollment option. Unlike Original Medicare, Medicare Advantage plans have provider networks and can also require prior authorization, meaning that the plan can approve or deny certain services. Original Medicare plans don’t have prior authorization requirements.

The manual also calls for repealing health policies enacted under Biden, such as the Inflation Reduction Act. The law enabled Medicare to negotiate with drugmakers for the first time in history, and recently resulted in an agreement with drug companies to lower the prices of 10 expensive prescriptions for Medicare enrollees.

Trump, however, has said repeatedly during the 2024 presidential campaign that he will not cut Medicare.

Project 2025 would eliminate the Education Department, which Trump supports

The Harris campaign said Project 2025 would “eliminate the U.S. Department of Education” — and that’s accurate. Project 2025 says federal education policy “should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” The plan scales back the federal government’s role in education policy and devolves the functions that remain to other agencies.

Aside from eliminating the department, the project also proposes scrapping the Biden administration’s Title IX revision, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also would let states opt out of federal education programs and calls for passing a federal parents’ bill of rights similar to ones passed in some Republican-led state legislatures.

Republicans, including Trump, have pledged to close the department, which gained its status in 1979 within Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s presidential Cabinet.

In one of his Agenda 47 policy videos, Trump promised to close the department and “to send all education work and needs back to the states.” Eliminating the department would have to go through Congress.

What Project 2025, Trump would do on overtime pay

In the graphic, the Harris campaign says Project 2025 allows “employers to stop paying workers for overtime work.”

The plan doesn’t call for banning overtime wages. It recommends changes to some Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, regulations and to overtime rules. Some changes, if enacted, could result in some people losing overtime protections, experts told us.

The document proposes that the Labor Department maintain an overtime threshold “that does not punish businesses in lower-cost regions (e.g., the southeast United States).” This threshold is the amount of money executive, administrative or professional employees need to make for an employer to exempt them from overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

In 2019, the Trump’s administration finalized a rule that expanded overtime pay eligibility to most salaried workers earning less than about $35,568, which it said made about 1.3 million more workers eligible for overtime pay. The Trump-era threshold is high enough to cover most line workers in lower-cost regions, Project 2025 said.

The Biden administration raised that threshold to $43,888 beginning July 1, and that will rise to $58,656 on Jan. 1, 2025. That would grant overtime eligibility to about 4 million workers, the Labor Department said.

It’s unclear how many workers Project 2025’s proposal to return to the Trump-era overtime threshold in some parts of the country would affect, but experts said some would presumably lose the right to overtime wages.

Other overtime proposals in Project 2025’s plan include allowing some workers to choose to accumulate paid time off instead of overtime pay, or to work more hours in one week and fewer in the next, rather than receive overtime.

Trump’s past with overtime pay is complicated. In 2016, the Obama administration said it would raise the overtime to salaried workers earning less than $47,476 a year, about double the exemption level set in 2004 of $23,660 a year.

But when a judge blocked the Obama rule, the Trump administration didn’t challenge the court ruling. Instead it set its own overtime threshold, which raised the amount, but by less than Obama.

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9 Activity Ideas for STEM in Physical Education

Lauren Chiangpradit
November 16, 2023
Reviewed by Sean Barton
Reviewed by Haley MacLean

Table of Contents

The Synergy of Movement and Learning

Physical education stem activities for elementary school, stem activities for middle school pe students, advanced stem challenges for high school learners, tech, tools, and resources for stem in physical education.

Integrating STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) into Physical Education (PE) classes offers an innovative approach to education. In an era where sports statistics, science, and technology increasingly influence athletics, PE classes are uniquely positioned to blend physical activity with STEM learning and 21st century skills. This article explores how PE educators and facilitators can use STEM learning in their coursework. It also provides a range of curriculum activity ideas to get students at different education and skill levels engaged.

Research indicates that physical activity can significantly bolster cognitive abilities. When students participate in movement-based learning, they benefit physically and experience enhanced concentration, memory, and creativity. This cognitive boost is crucial for comprehending and applying STEM concepts, which often demand high levels of problem-solving and critical thinking. Active learning, where students engage in physical activities while learning STEM concepts, results in more profound understanding and retention of information. Integrating physical and mental challenges not only makes learning more enjoyable, but is more effective, as students apply theoretical concepts in practical settings, leading to better comprehension and recall.

Integrating STEM into elementary physical education presents a fantastic opportunity to lay the foundation for lifelong learning and curiosity in young students. Through these innovative activities, elementary school children can explore and understand key STEM concepts while engaging in fun and physical play. Each activity is designed to be not only educational but highly interactive and suitable for their developmental stage. Here are some engaging activities that blend physical education with STEM learning for elementary students:

Jump and Measure: Students perform a variety of jumps – like the long jump and high jump – and measure their distances or heights. This activity introduces basic concepts of measurement and physics, encouraging students to understand how force and motion play a role in their physical activities.
Geometry with Body Movements: In this activity, children use their bodies to create geometric shapes, either individually or in groups. It’s an engaging way for students to learn about basic geometry, spatial awareness, and symmetry. Teachers can challenge students to form complex shapes, enhancing their understanding and teamwork skills.
STEM Soccer : In a lesson devoted to measuring throw-ins, students collect data in centimeters and convert their data to meters dividing by 100. Students then evaluate measurement systems to decide the best measurement size. This disguised learning, interactive lesson is a great way for physical education teachers to add STEM into their PE classes.
Weather and Exercise: Students observe and record weather patterns over a week and discuss how different weather conditions affect physical activities. This integrates meteorology into PE, allowing students to see the real-world application of science in their everyday activities.
Heart Rate Exploration: After engaging in various exercises, students measure their heart rates to learn about the cardiovascular system and the science behind exercise. This activity not only educates them about their bodies, but about the importance of physical fitness in maintaining health.
Playground Physics: Utilizing playground equipment, this activity allows students to explore concepts like gravity, force, and motion. They can experience firsthand how these physical laws impact their play and movements, turning the playground into a living laboratory.

As students enter middle school, their capacity for more complex and abstract thinking grows significantly. This developmental stage is an ideal time to introduce more intricate STEM concepts through physical education, enhancing their learning experience with practical applications. The following STEM activities are tailored for middle school students, offering a blend of intellectual challenge and physical engagement. These activities are designed to pique students’ curiosity in STEM fields through the familiar and enjoyable medium of sports and physical exercises. By participating in these activities, students not only deepen their understanding of STEM concepts, but learn valuable lessons in teamwork, problem-solving, and the practical application of classroom knowledge to real-world scenarios. Here’s a look at some stimulating and educational STEM activities for middle school PE:

Sports Statistics Analysis: Students gather and analyze sports statistics from games or physical activities. This teaches them about data collection, interpretation, and the importance of statistics in understanding and improving athletic performance.
STEM Football: During a lesson in STEM Football, students collect and graph data of a controlled experiment by using a line graph. Students then explain the relationship between kinetic energy and mass by writing a claim evidence supported by evidence-based reasoning from class data. This lesson highlights the strong classroom connection between physical education and STEM learning, and how it can help create tangible examples for students.
Energy and Movement: This activity focuses on the concept of kinetic and potential energy in the context of sports. Students explore how energy is transferred and transformed during different physical activities, such as running, jumping, or throwing a ball.
Biomechanics of Sports: Here, students delve into the study of human movement and mechanics in various sports. They learn about the science behind athletic performance, injury prevention , and how athletes optimize their movements for maximum efficiency and safety.
Mathletics Relay: A relay race where each leg involves solving a math problem before passing the baton. This combines physical fitness with mathematical skills, emphasizing quick thinking and teamwork.
Technology in Sports Training: Students explore how technology is increasingly used in sports training and performance analysis. They might look at wearable tech, video analysis software, or other tools that help athletes improve their skills and coaches to make informed decisions.

High school students, with their advanced cognitive skills and heightened interests, are well-positioned to tackle complex STEM challenges through physical education. This section of the curriculum is designed to offer high school learners in-depth, hands-on experiences that combine higher-level STEM concepts with physical activities and sports. These advanced activities are not just about physical exertion; they require students to engage in critical thinking, problem-solving, and creative innovation. They provide an opportunity for students to see the real-world applications of the STEM knowledge they acquire in their classrooms, bridging the gap between theoretical learning and practical implementation. By participating in these activities, high school students can gain a deeper understanding of various STEM fields, such as physics, engineering, biotechnology, and environmental science, observing how these disciplines intersect with sports and physical fitness. Here are some challenging and intellectually stimulating STEM activities designed for high school learners:

Physics of Sports Equipment Design: Students research and discuss the physics principles involved in the design of sports equipment. This can include topics like material science, aerodynamics, and ergonomics, providing insights into how equipment is optimized for performance and safety.
Engineering a Miniature Golf Course: Students design and construct a miniature golf course, applying concepts of geometry, physics, and design. This project not only involves creativity, but a practical application of STEM principles by creating functional and enjoyable mini-golf holes.
Sports Analytics Project: Students undertake a project to analyze a sports game using statistical methods and tools. This activity introduces them to data science in sports, teaching them how to interpret and use data to understand game strategies and player performance.
Biotechnology in Athletics: This topic explores how biotechnology is used in sports, from equipment design to performance enhancement techniques. Students might study material innovations, genetic research in athletics, or the ethical implications of biotechnology in sports.
Environmental Science in Outdoor Sports: Students analyze how environmental factors impact outdoor sports activities. They can study topics like climate change, pollution, and natural terrain, understanding the interplay between sports and the environment.
Virtual Reality Sports Training: Students explore how VR technology is being used for skill development, strategy training, and injury rehabilitation in various sports by discussing the emerging role of virtual reality in sports.

Bringing STEM into PE classes effectively requires the right resources, including technology tools, educational kits, and comprehensive guides. Resources like the STEM Sports® kits provide ready-to-use activities that seamlessly blend physical education with STEM learning. These kits offer an invaluable resource for teachers looking to enrich their curriculum and engage K-8 students through a cross-curricular learning approach. For additional resources, tools, and innovative ideas, please visit STEM Sports® .

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Using Project Based Learning in Physical Education

students surrounding a coach who is giving instructions from his clipboard

Project Based Learning (PBL) often seems best suited for academic subjects, and when it comes to physical education and play, it's difficult to see how PBL fits. But with a closer look at Gold Standard PBL , and some creative planning, projects have a place in the gym or on the ball field as much as they do in the classroom. Here are some ideas and tips.

Ensure that Physical Education Is Happening

One reason PBL is not often brought into PE classes is that it’s difficult to find a way to encourage physical activity while working on a project. It’s easy to think of projects about health and wellness that may connect to PE class – such as “create a plan for a healthy lifestyle” – but those do not typically involve actual physical activity. While it may require some creativity, it is possible to ensure students are getting physically active while problem solving, conducting inquiry, creating a product, and all the other elements of PBL.

In an article from Whole Child , Andrew Miller explained one way this could work. He presented a scenario where high school seniors were given the task of creating PE units for middle school students, with the goal of encouraging the seniors to apply concepts and strategies they learned in their own PE education to create an engaging unit appropriate for middle school students, similar to those the PE teachers themselves would create. As the students focused on effective solutions, they were required to perform the activities in their unit to ensure that exercise and play were encouraged and achieved, and to prove the units would provide an adequate level of activity.

Create a Compelling Problem or Question

The central focus of Gold Standard PBL is giving students a problem or question they have to answer through the project. The problem or question has to go beyond simple knowledge — it needs to require students to apply the knowledge they have gained.

In Miller's example, the high school seniors, through experience and instruction, knew what activity and play looked like. They were also provided instruction on standards from the National Association for Sports and Physical Education that showed measurable ways they could determine if physical activity and appropriate learning were taking place.

Keep the Task Open Ended

Reflection and student voice and choice are crucial parts of PBL. For a PE classroom attempting to include PBL, keeping the challenge or task open ended is essential; this is done best by asking students to craft something new. Instead of simply quoting back knowledge, they will be involved in inquiry and innovation.

Consider a unit that asks students to create a new game for the class. The teacher may have their students include a skill they’re working on to help them practice, such as dribbling the ball, cardio stamina or one of the NASPE standards. The students are then given free rein to experiment and create, designing a game that will incorporate the skill. The open-ended nature of the challenge makes experimentation natural. Similar ideas include planning and conducting an Olympic Games with original events, or designing and using a running course around the campus (or out in the community, if possible) with obstacles or exercise stations with varying levels of challenge.

Use Peer Feedback

Peer feedback works well in the PE classroom. In the example of a student creating a new game, the class can be asked to play the game. This gives the students more physical activity, and also gives the game's creator crucial feedback as to what works and what doesn’t. Revision, another important spoke on the Gold Standard wheel, is often necessary to perfect the game.

Know the Educational Goal

While the student's main goal is to create and present a product, the entire project needs to center on the unit’s educational goal. From the beginning, teachers should have a clear understanding of what they hope to accomplish through the PBL process, whether it’s meeting PE curriculum standards or seeing students excited and engaged by physical activity.

PBL is effective because it involves the students on a deeper level, providing them with real-world skills they can take into college and beyond. Both of these benefits make it worth considering as an addition to the traditional gym class.

Do you have ideas for projects in PE? Make a comment below!

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Open access
Published: 20 August 2024

Main competencies of future coaches: investigation and effectiveness of development within the tuning project in higher education in China

Yong Jia 1 ,
Xianjie Zheng 1 ,
Zhaofang Peng 2 &
Siyong Xia 1

BMC Medical Education volume 24 , Article number: 899 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

The purpose of this article is to study the core competencies of future coaches, as well as the effectiveness of their development under the conditions of the Tuning Project in higher education in China.

A survey was conducted in three groups using a random sample of participants (96 student-athletes, 29 teachers and 35 employers of the School of Physical Education of Chongqing University) created by the authors to assess 30 competencies included in the Tuning Project and correlations between the groups’ assessments were examined.

According to the ranking and rating results of 30 competencies included in the Tuning Project, there were significant differences between the answers of these three clusters. The competence “Ability to apply knowledge in practice” had the highest correlation of the results in all the clusters of the respondents (students, teachers, employers) for both importance (0.2976) and effectiveness (0.2845). “Problem-solving skills” – (0.2453) and “Will to succeed” – (0.2152) were the next two competencies that the respondents had rated highly according to the both evaluation criteria.

Conclusions

This paper can be used for further studies of the Tuning Project in the educational processes of China, in particular, in higher sports education.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Universities improve education, concentrating on the most prestigious fields of knowledge, such as economics, medicine, or law [ 1 ]. However, modern scientific literature lacks research publications aimed at improving the professional competencies of athletes, especially future coaches [ 2 , 3 ]. A combination of “traditional” and “special” competencies is the key to the effectiveness of the educational process at any university. According to the specific features of each region, it is possible to itemize the most useful competencies for each profession [ 4 ]. First, European Union States used this methodology in line with the Bologna Process and other related events, which accelerated the introduction, development, and implementation of necessary competencies of future specialists. Specific and narrowly focused courses, university lending, and student exchange are the main vectors of differences between universities around the world [ 5 ]. Thus, the learning environment serves as a space, in which students acquire, develop, and explore new professional skills.

Competence is a combination of knowledge, skills, abilities, experience, and personal characteristics necessary for the successful performance of a specific role or task. It encompasses various aspects, such as technical skills, interpersonal abilities, leadership qualities, creativity, adaptability, and others [ 6 , 7 ]. In the modern world, there is a need for continuous improvement of students’ competencies in the context of their future professions. Therefore, the article highlights four main directions for enhancing the activities of future coaches: the role of technology, the need for lifelong learning, the importance of diversity and inclusion, and the understanding of how coaching impacts the mental health of athletes [ 8 ]. However, the development of coaching competencies largely depends on current challenges, such as the coronavirus, global warming, and political instability. In this regard, it is worth noting five key competencies for a coach: (1) critical thinking and problem-solving, (2) communication and interpersonal skills, (3) leadership and motivation, (4) technological literacy, and (5) professionalism and ethics [ 9 , 10 ]. For this reason, comprehensive training practices are actively implemented to enhance and identify new systems of professional values among athletes. The Tuning Project is an example.

The Tuning Project (Harmonization of educational structures in European Union States (EUS)) is one of the key projects in this area. It aims to concretize the practice of the Bologna process [ 11 ] at the level of universities and specific subject areas. The basis of the Tuning Project is the development of detailed curricula systematizing predictive competencies and their real mechanisms of implementation. Nowadays, it has become the subject to apply at various universities outside the European continent [ 12 ].

The tuning project

At a meeting in Prague in May 2001, the European Ministers of Education confirmed their intentions to “tune” different systems of education in the frame of the project titled Tuning Educational Structures in EUS. The project implies adapting the curricula, educational paraphernalia, and evaluation methods to meet the unified standards [ 11 ]. The key motto of the project is “Coordination of educational structures and training programs based on autonomy and diversity.” In addition, the project emphasizes the connection between practical and theoretical aspects of contemporary education. This approach aims to provide students with valuable foundations for their future professions [ 13 ]. Thus, the Tuning Project defines five key components of any curriculum: general competencies or universal knowledge and skills, professional competencies, the role of ECTS as a cumulative knowledge system, and a unified system for effective assessment and improvement of the educational process. The interaction of these five components contributes to the development of the necessary competencies within the framework of a curriculum, which results in learning outcomes [ 13 ].

The determinant “learning outcomes” is not identified with the concept of a “grading system” according to the Tuning Project. It results from the effectiveness of measures to develop adequate competencies [ 14 ]. On the other hand, the internationalization of education, primarily the clarity and transparency of qualifications, was a key factor of the educational approach based on learning outcomes, and it became mandatory by 2010. Nevertheless, the specialized literature criticized the expediency and effectiveness of using the concept of learning outcomes in higher education (as opposed to vocational education) [ 15 ]. Hence, the tuning approach becomes more relevant. It emphasizes the ability to apply the acquired knowledge or competencies but not the student’s academic performance [ 16 ].

In the first stages, the theoretical and methodological approach to the implementation of the Tuning Project focused on five main areas (mathematics, geology, business, history, and educational sciences) leveling in EUS education [ 17 ]. However, several other areas could also adapt to certain challenges according to this methodology, using the experience of previous and(or) current EUS thematic educational networks. These areas are chemistry, physics, foreign languages, law, medical sciences, and technology [ 18 ].

The Tuning project is still in its early stages, but several studies have demonstrated its prospects. Research revealed that athletes participating in the project of tuning integrated in their young multisport training demonstrated significant improvements in their performance compared to those who did not participate [ 19 ]. The study also found that athletes reported higher levels of enjoyment in their training sessions and a greater sense of motivation. Launched in 2000, the Tuning Project met the eye of a large audience of applicants in the end. Therefore, it has spread worldwide, including universities outside the Bologna process [ 20 ].

Another study showed that China has a strong interest in using Tuning to modernize higher education. The Chinese government has committed to reform higher education in the direction of obtaining higher-quality practical training for specialists, tuned to the real needs of the market, and changing professional requirements. in accordance with certain skills, competencies or requirements that arise before education. In order for this system to remain sufficiently flexible, the government opens up wide opportunities for pedagogical experiments at the local and regional level to implement best practices at the national level. Tuning serves as a way to improve teaching and learning and make Chinese diplomas more compatible with international qualifications. Scientists have also identified some challenges to the implementation of the Tuning Project as specific approach to development of education in China. These challenges include the need to develop a Chinese credit system compatible with the European Credit Accumulation and Transfer System (ECTS). In addition, it is necessary to train Chinese academics in using Tuning techniques [ 21 , 22 ].

The peculiarities of higher education for athletes

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) believes that their graduation rates are currently significantly ahead of the total population of subject-oriented students [ 23 ]. It means the prospects and actualization of higher sports education are on the rise again. Physical activity, vision, and well-being are the main specifics in the daily education of a student-athlete. Their academic performance epitomizes their adequate perception of physical culture, that is, the curriculum [ 24 ]. The modern scientific literature examines many challenges that arise when providing effective sports training. In particular, in-depth specialization and an individualized curriculum influence the sports identity of student-athletes [ 25 ]. At the same time, the key specifics of training future Olympic champions are the following: psychological stress resulting from the “principle of superiority”; difficulties when student-athletes interact with their faculty administration; personalized approach for building on the strengths of an individual; and so forth [ 26 ]. Scientists from the Canadian Universities of Toronto and Ottawa specifically point to the problem of time management in sports faculties [ 27 ].

The objective of this scholarly article is to examine the fundamental proficiencies of prospective coaches. The paper also evaluates the efficacy of competence development within the framework of the Tuning Project implemented in Chinese higher education. In this case, the Tuning Project was implemented at a local level, not in connection with national or other broader educational contexts, as part of an experiment to improve education. It was based on the described project experience in the countries of the European Union and the relevant fundamental documents, which are cited here at the appropriate places.

The current study included the following tasks:

To investigate the main target competencies of future athletes of the School of Physical Education of Chongqing University.

To analyze the effective component of the development of these competencies in the respondents.

To develop a program of recommended competencies and outcomes in the context of the Tuning Project.

The research process had to address several challenges. Firstly, there were limitations in the available data and literature sources regarding the implementation of the Tuning program in Chinese higher education. This is due to the fact that this project is being implemented experimentally at the local level by interested teachers and/or institutions and does not yet have national coordination but may acquire it in the future. The second challenge was to collect information on the effectiveness of developing coaching competencies within the Tuning project for the same reasons. It required active collaboration with students, instructors, and administration, which at times posed challenges in ensuring sufficient participation and engagement from all involved parties.

Materials and methods

The key research question is to determine the key competencies within the context of the Tuning project that are important from the perspectives of three examined categories: students, teachers, and employers. A bibliographic analysis allowed the authors to conclude that the Tuning Program had to result in the outlined competencies of student-athletes using the university curriculum. The proposed components must undergo a separate evaluation as part of a comprehensive evaluation of the curriculum based on the study sample within the framework of the EUS Tuning Program.

Participants in all three significant categories for the study were selected from previously known lists of students, teachers, and employees related to the topic under study using random sampling. Random sampling was conducted among those who met the established selection criteria for each of the three groups, which are described separately below. Invitations to participate in the study were sent by e-mail, and questionnaires were received and returned by e-mail. All received questionnaires were considered correctly completed and were considered in the study.

The authors selected respondents, focusing on the professional field of future athletes. They also considered the respondents’ experience in sports (all types of sports activities, starting from a young age) and their level of academic performance. Thus, the criteria for sample formation were experience in sports of at least 5 years and good academic performance (average score in all subjects of more than 4 points).

The sample consisted of 3rd year students of the School of Physical Education of Chongqing University. Students of the Coach Education Academic Department took part in the experiment. The study involved 96 respondents. Among them, there were more women (49) than men (47). The average age was 19.9 years (SD = 11; range 20–24 years). By nationality, all the students were Chinese. At the same time, most students had studied at the university’s vocational college. Only 13 out of 96 participants in the experiment had entered the university after graduating from secondary education (Table 1 ).

All students received a questionnaire (consent to the processing of personal data) generated in Google Forms. They had 1 week to fill it out. All 96 students submitted the questionnaire on time; therefore, the initial sample included all 96 students.

Another group of respondents included teachers invited to participate in the study. These teachers worked at the Department of Coaching Education, where the students studied. The selected teachers had teaching experience and experience in sports. The study involved teachers with more than 10 years of experience in sports and at least three years of teaching. Thus, 29 teachers were selected from the proposed 45 teachers of this department. A total of 29 teachers received questionnaires (similar to those of students) (average age = 39.1 years, SD = 2; range 26–58 years). All 29 teachers submitted their consent forms; therefore, the initial sample included 29 teachers.

The administration and the teaching staff of the university had to select such category of respondents as employers. Within 1 week, they provided about 20 candidates as potential employers for their students in the future. Educational institutions at any level of education, gyms, and rehabilitation centers, as well as specialized sports centers, were eligible for participation. The most important criteria were the salary level, the specific use of coaching skills, the possibility of career growth, and the position in local ratings. Institutions from international or national networks were preferable.

The diversity of employers had to be as wide as possible to obtain the most representative results. The selected group included 20 sports educational institutions (schools, kindergartens), namely, 9 private establishments, 13 gyms, and 7 specialized sports centers in Chongqing. The employers also received an online invitation to participate in the study and submitted an application form (a request for data processing and participation in the experiment). Thus, 35 out of 40 agreed. The survey in the study was carried out on behalf of the university administration.

Research design

The respondents worked within the framework of general learning competencies for all students, regardless of their specialization, through the Tuning project. All of them studied and worked within the Tuning Project in accordance with its specifications described in the “Tuning General Brochure” (2014) [ 18 ]. For analysis, the respondents were presented with 30 competencies, which were presented in the same original formulation to each participant in the study.

The questionnaire for the respondents consisted of two parts:

Ranking the importance/level of achievement of the proposed competencies for student-athletes.

To do this, the Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) grid developed by Martilla and James [ 28 ] was used. The IPA grid consists of a matrix in which organizational factors are placed according to their importance and performance. Importance refers to the extent to which a given factor influences the achievement of organizational goals, while performance evaluates how effectively the organization performs that factor. The following diagram is intended to identify the importance and satisfaction level of this competence at this level of educational development. Respondents were required to allocate the 30 proposed competencies among four blocks (Fig. 1 ).

Importance/effectiveness of competencies rank chart [ 28 ]

Support (Importance - High, Effectiveness - High).

Alignment (Importance - High, Teaching Effectiveness - Low).

Excessive Effort (Importance - Low, Effectiveness - High).

Low Priority (Importance - Low, Effectiveness - Low).

All three groups of respondents were required to rank the competencies until 5 out of 30 competencies were identified, which were then rated on a scale of 1 to 5.

The survey was created using the Google Forms tool and involved the use of a website with an associative map, where respondents dragged and dropped specific competencies into each cell ( https://www.mindmeister.com/ ). All results were automatically synchronized with their Google Mail addresses. Respondents were given two weeks to provide their responses.

At the final stage, the authors developed a prototype of a recommended educational program, taking into account the obtained results of the competencies of student-athletes.

Statistical tools

The results were processed using statistical indicators in Microsoft Excel 2007. The questionnaire was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The interpretation of Cronbach’s alpha values is as follows: >0.9 excellent; >0.8 good; 0.7 acceptable; 0.6 questionable; and > 0.5 poor. The overall Cronbach’s alpha value for the questionnaire was 0.941, with values of 0.95, 0.95, 0.94, 0.93, 0.96, and 0.92 for the six dimensions mentioned above, respectively (in the approach of the Importance-Performance Analysis: Low Priority; Excessive Effort, Alignment, Importance generally; Effectiveness generally). Conclusion - the questionnaire is reliable and can be used for survey purposes.

To begin with, the key prioritization of competencies was determined among all groups of respondents. Based on the survey results, several competencies with the lowest ratings need to be highlighted:

“Ability to apply knowledge in practice” had the highest correlation of the results in all the clusters of the respondents (students, teachers, employers) for both importance (0.2976) and effectiveness (0.2845).

“Problem-solving skills” – (0.2453).

“Will to succeed” – (0.2152).

The study found significant differences in the ranking of top competencies among the three examined clusters. The multilevel analysis revealed a significant difference among all 30 competencies (α = 0.005). Specifically, “Ethical Commitment” showed the greatest disparity in the assessment results. Students pay insufficient attention to it, employers undervalue it, but teachers recognize its importance (ranking it 5 out of 30). Interestingly, the employer-respondents rated “Ability to work in interdisciplinary teams” significantly higher compared to students and teachers.

The research revealed that 23 out of 30 competencies across the three respondent clusters have low correlation coefficients (less than 0.1). Specifically, in terms of the “Effectiveness” criterion, there was a significantly smaller number of components, only 12 out of 30. Additionally, the students highly valued the competency of “Working Independently”. Importantly, a substantial number of competencies demonstrated notable variations in evaluation among the distinct clusters. Thus, among student-athletes, there was a high level of self-criticism and fundamental professional knowledge provided by the university. On the other hand, the students placed particular emphasis on the significance of effective planning, efficient time management, and the practical utilization of acquired knowledge within the commercial realm of professional sports (Table 2 ). To make it easier for the reader to perceive and select information, Table 2 does not present all comparative assessments of competencies, but only those in which statistically significant differences were found between the groups of respondents studied.

The results of the second survey revealed some common trends in the three clusters. For the students, the most prioritized competencies were “Will to succeed” and “Initiative and entrepreneurial spirit”. For the teachers, the most prioritized competency was the “Ability to self-criticism” For the employers, the most prioritized competency was “Creativity”. In general, the shared priorities include “Decision-making”, “Ability to make new decisions (creativity)” and “Will to succeed” (Table 3 ).

According to Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient, the scores of the employers are closer to each other compared to the student group. When comparing the three groups, the greatest rating differences were in the following competencies: Basic computer skills (students did not assign any scores to any of the items, while employers ranked it 5th) and Interpersonal competencies (in the top five for students, but none for teachers) (Table 4 ).

The final stage of the study identified a set of key competencies. This set served as the foundation for the development of future curricula for the surveyed student-athletes based on their highest and lowest correlating assessments. In addition to the top competencies in all the clusters, the most important competencies are those highly rated by the respondents but insufficiently developed. These competencies included “Basic computer skills”, “Ethical obligations”, “Ability to work independently”, “Planning and time management,” and “Adaptation and actions in new situations”. Following the tenets of the Tuning Project, the educational curriculum for student-athletes is recommended to align with the current academic specialization, as exemplified in Table 5 .

It is reasonable to pay increased attention to competencies that were recognized as significant by all groups of respondents but are insufficiently developed. Examples are “Basic computer skills,” “Ethical responsibilities,” “Ability to work independently,” “Planning and time management,” and “Adaptation and actions in new situations.”

Given the rapid changes in the modern professional environment, it is recommended to systematically update educational programs. Regular revisions can ensure alignment with employer requirements and the development of the required competencies among students. The obtained results indicate the multi-layered and narrow profile of sports education in China, as well as some differences between theoretical curricula for student-athletes and the real demands of employers and teachers. Primarily, this pertains to the aspiration to unlock athletes’ interpersonal potential, foster multiculturalism, and encourage creative thinking. While the interviewed respondents tend to strengthen the commercial and business aspects of their activities – the students want to develop initiative and entrepreneurial spirit. Thus, a study by Irish scientists highlights the relevance of modern sports education, considering the specifics of this profile of the curriculum [ 25 ]. In particular, they noted the need to develop an effective athlete curriculum, which would contain a balance between the stress during training and the stage of recovery of physical and moral components. Interviewing nine elite student-athletes showed that each athlete wanted to develop their approach to training management and creative abilities. At the same time, a group of students who studied according to the curriculum failed in managing their stress. Within the framework of the current article, the students also identified the need to develop the competence “Ability to make new decisions (creativity)”. In addition, the respondents of other clusters noted this [ 29 ].

At the same time, the 30 components of the Tuning Project turned out to be insufficiently adapted to the specifics of sports education [ 30 ]. In particular, some studies by Colombian scientists discuss the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on training student-athletes, their health, and well-being [ 31 ]. Thus, they point out that only 38.7% were able to implement their training programs after the pandemic since the disease significantly affected their well-being. The respondents also noted that their average number of meals per day remained the same as in the pre- and post-COVID period. However, female students reported that they consumed less food and the quality of their diet. This indicates that the implementation of the recognized Tuning approaches should be coordinated in detail with the needs and characteristics of student-athletes.

The current study showed that 23 out of 30 competencies in three clusters of respondents have low correlation coefficients. This result indicates that some competencies from the Tuning project profile are not peculiar to student-athletes. In particular, according to the criterion of “Effectiveness”, the study identified a significantly smaller number of components. It suggests the similarity of educational programs and the trend towards an interdisciplinary approach in the modern education system.

The analysis of the selected competencies showed that all three clusters demonstrate a tendency to practical aspects. Therefore, the fundamental method for teaching future coaches is training based on practical systems. The adaptation of the educational process to the basics of the Tuning Project is rather common for engineering disciplines. The studies of Drazan et al. [ 32 ] are rather interesting, indicating the expediency of using STEM educational practices. They are successful in training future scientists and engineers, focusing on modern challenges of the Tuning Project, such as social and environmental. Scientists note that the methodology of the Tuning Programme allows a comprehensive approach to the implementation of the necessary components of knowledge in the curriculum using educational STEM tools. As they note, the STEM-tools are extremely useful to train athletes. On the other hand, using the Tuning Project methodology allows teachers to implement innovative aspects in the educational practice and to develop a digital education programme for bachelors, which indicates the high effectiveness of this methodology and its importance for updating modern higher education [ 33 ]. For example, scientists from a Russian university noted the effectiveness of this method when inviting international and national stakeholders to participate in the educational process [ 34 ]. Meanwhile, they noted the effectiveness of empowering students of the IT Faculty to influence the learning process and form their educational trajectories. This indicates that the project is flexible for application and useful for various training systems (different countries of the world).

A similar process of applying the Tuning Project is noted in the publication. Researchers point out that the political situation in African countries influenced the use of this programme significantly [ 35 ]. However, when launching the initiative, they were concerned about the ownership, inclusivity, leadership and optimality of the strategy. However, further measures dispelled these myths. They also indicate that the tuning process requires the involvement of numerous stakeholders, such as administrators, ministries, higher education and quality agencies, politicians, employers and the public sector, students, regional bodies, intermediaries, and university associations. Therefore, this process requires long-term consultations with different groups of individuals.

On the other hand, the current article mentions the employment of students with a sports education as future coaches. Regarding the factors of the studied project, focused on coaches’ training common priorities among the three groups include “Decision-making”, “Ability to make new decisions (creativity)” and “Will to succeed”. Thus, the expectations and reality of employment are not consistent with the expectations of students and the direction that teachers adhere to. Consequently, it is crucial to establish a unified approach to competence development and training methods for future athletes. This article confirms the need for synergy between educational institutions for the implementation of the project.

Noticeable differences in opinions among students, teachers, and employers have founded in this study indicate some disagreement regarding the assessment and understanding of competencies. Therefore, it is recommended to consider the possibility of unifying the educational programs of these three clusters. A common approach can contribute to convergence in the requirements and expectations of key competencies. It is advisable to develop additional training modules or initiatives to enhance these competencies. The great importance of practical aspects in all three clusters emphasizes the importance of practical teaching methods. Therefore, there is an urgent need to focus on practical systems and introduce them into the educational process for the preparation of future coaches.

The research process had to address several challenges. Firstly, there were limitations in the available data and literature sources regarding the implementation of the Tuning program in Chinese higher education. Secondly, it was challenging to collect information on the effectiveness of developing coaching competencies within the Tuning project. It required active collaboration with students, instructors, and administration. This process at times posed challenges in ensuring sufficient participation and engagement from all involved parties [ 36 ]. Finally, there is a limited amount of research on the implementation of the Tuning Project in non-European countries, namely Asian giants, such as China. Therefore, the analysis is extremely relevant for the effectiveness of this project regarding the higher sports education of coaches.

Ethical issues

The respondents received full information about each stage of the study and filled out Google Forms, providing their consent to data processing. The students, teachers, and employers voluntarily participated in the study and understood its terms and conditions. The University administration coordinated the research process. The teachers vested interest in the authors’ recommendation programs for the Tuning Project. The questionnaire was anonymous, and the information regarding the respondents’ characteristics was confidential.

Research limitations

The authors conducted the study in one Chinese university and included the potential needs of the target group of student-athletes. Therefore, the results are impossible to generalize. This university context and the characteristics of the Chinese educational market limit the generalizability of the study results to other contexts and populations. The assessment of acquired competencies depends on individual perceptions and the influence of the specific research region. This fact may impact the objectivity of the results and make them less universal or representative of other contexts. Another limitation that can be considered is that the 30 competencies of the Project relate mostly to extended theoretical curricula; therefore, the competencies are somewhat less representative of sports disciplines.

Globalization and integration processes around contribute to the intensive improvement of educational programmes in different parts of the world. The Tuning Project (Harmonization of educational structures in EUS) is one of the key projects in this area. It aims to concretize the practice of the Bologna process. The magnitude and efficacy of this program facilitate its applicability in non-Bologna Declaration signatory countries, notably China. Nowadays, research is relevant to specific creative educational programmes that are not sufficiently amenable to such standardization (sports higher education). The purpose of this article is to study the core competencies of future coaches, as well as the effectiveness of their development under the conditions of the Tuning Project in higher education in China. According to the ranking and rating results of 30 competencies included in the Tuning Project, there were significant differences between the answers of these three clusters. Using multilevel analysis, the authors determined that there was a significant difference between all the 30 competencies (α = 0.005). The competence “Ability to apply knowledge in practice” had the highest correlation of the results in all the clusters of the respondents (students, teachers, employers) for both importance (0.2976) and effectiveness (0.2845). “Problem-solving skills” – (0.2453) and “Will to succeed” – (0.2152) were the next two competencies that the respondents had rated highly according to both evaluation criteria. At the same time, the correlation results were low for 23 out of the 30 competencies in the three clusters of respondents (less than 0.1). This indicates a significant number of such competencies of the Tuning Project that are not inherent in student-athletes. Using the systematization of the obtained results, the authors identified eight key competencies to pay attention to when developing a future modular curriculum. They were “Basic computer skills”, “Ethical obligations”, “Ability to work independently”, “Planning and time management”, “Adaptation and actions in new situations”, “Decision-making”, “Ability to make new decisions (creativity)”, “Will to succeed”. This paper can be used for further studies of the Tuning Project in the educational processes of China, in particular, in higher sports education.

Future researchers should take into account their key competencies and develop a unified curriculum for athletes at the university, considering the principles of “tuning”. However, future researchers could conduct further studies to compare the effectiveness of the Tuning project in higher education in China with similar projects in other Asian countries, to gain a broader understanding of its impact and outcomes. In this regard, it would also be appropriate to develop a support and training program for teachers, enabling them to effectively integrate Tuning principles into their courses and support the development of key competencies among future coaches. Furthermore, future articles could focus on the implementation of a monitoring and evaluation system for the outcomes of the Tuning project in higher education in China, as well as the development of collaborative projects and partnerships with sports organizations, coaching schools, and clubs.

Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].

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(1) 2023 China Sports Science Society Special Project on College Sports and Health Education Curriculum Construction Research on the Implementation Path of Ideological and Political Education in Sports and Health Courses in Private Colleges and Universities under the Perspective of Moral Education. (2) 2021 Project of Chongqing Education Science 14th Five-year plan Project “Study on Evaluation Index of Learning city”.

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Jia, Y., Zheng, X., Peng, Z. et al. Main competencies of future coaches: investigation and effectiveness of development within the tuning project in higher education in China. BMC Med Educ 24 , 899 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05906-0

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05906-0

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Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow holds up a copy of Project 2025 during the first night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (AP)

Project 2025 has a starring role in this week’s Democratic National Convention.

And it was front and center on Night 1.

"This is Project 2025," Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, said as she laid a hardbound copy of the 900-page document on the lectern. "Over the next four nights, you are going to hear a lot about what is in this 900-page document. Why? Because this is the Republican blueprint for a second Trump term."

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has warned Americans about "Trump’s Project 2025" agenda — even though former President Donald Trump doesn’t claim the conservative presidential transition document.

"Donald Trump wants to take our country backward," Harris said July 23 in Milwaukee. "He and his extreme Project 2025 agenda will weaken the middle class. Like, we know we got to take this seriously, and can you believe they put that thing in writing?"

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, has joined in on the talking point.

"Don't believe (Trump) when he's playing dumb about this Project 2025. He knows exactly what it'll do," Walz said Aug. 9 in Glendale, Arizona.

Trump’s campaign has worked to build distance from the project, which the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, led with contributions from dozens of conservative groups.

PolitiFact researched Harris’ warnings about how the plan would affect reproductive rights, federal entitlement programs and education, just as we did for President Joe Biden’s Project 2025 rhetoric . Here’s what the project does and doesn’t call for, and how it squares with Trump’s positions.

To distance himself from Project 2025 amid the Democratic attacks, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he "knows nothing" about it and has "no idea" who is in charge of it. (CNN identified at least 140 former advisers from the Trump administration who have been involved.)

The Heritage Foundation sought contributions from more than 100 conservative organizations for its policy vision for the next Republican presidency, which was published in 2023.

A recently released recording of Russell Vought, a Project 2025 author and the former director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, showed Vought saying Trump’s "very supportive of what we do." He said Trump was only distancing himself because Democrats were making a bogeyman out of the document.

The Harris campaign shared a graphic on X that claimed "Trump’s Project 2025 plan for workers" would "go after birth control and ban abortion nationwide."

The plan doesn’t call to ban abortion nationwide, though its recommendations could curtail some contraceptives and limit abortion access.

What’s known about Trump’s abortion agenda neither lines up with Harris’ description nor Project 2025’s wish list.

Project 2025 says the Department of Health and Human Services Department should "return to being known as the Department of Life by explicitly rejecting the notion that abortion is health care."

The manual also calls for the Justice Department to enforce the 1873 Comstock Act on mifepristone, which bans the mailing of "obscene" materials. Abortion access supporters fear that a strict interpretation of the law could go further to ban mailing the materials used in procedural abortions, such as surgical instruments and equipment.

Trump has recently said states should decide abortion regulations and that he wouldn’t block access to contraceptives . Trump said during his June 27 debate with Biden that he wouldn’t ban mifepristone after the Supreme Court "approved" it. But the court rejected the lawsuit based on standing, not the case’s merits. He has not weighed in on the Comstock Act or said whether he supports it being used to block abortion medication, or other kinds of abortions.

"When you read (Project 2025)," Harris told a crowd July 23 in Wisconsin, "you will see, Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare."

The Project 2025 document does not call for Social Security cuts. None of its 10 references to Social Security addresses plans for cutting the program.

Harris also misleads about Trump’s Social Security views.

In his earlier campaigns and before he was a politician, Trump said about a half-dozen times that he’s open to major overhauls of Social Security, including cuts and privatization. More recently, in a March 2024 CNBC interview , Trump said of entitlement programs such as Social Security, "There’s a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting." However, he quickly walked that statement back, and his CNBC comment stands at odds with essentially everything else Trump has said during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump’s campaign website says that not "a single penny" should be cut from Social Security. We rated Harris’ claim that Trump intends to cut Social Security Mostly False.

Project 2025 does propose changes to Medicare, including making Medicare Advantage, the private insurance offering in Medicare, the "default" enrollment option. Unlike Original Medicare, Medicare Advantage plans have provider networks and can also require prior authorization, meaning that the plan can approve or deny certain services. Original Medicare plans don’t have prior authorization requirements.

Trump, however, has said repeatedly during the 2024 presidential campaign that he will not cut Medicare.

The Harris campaign said Project 2025 would "eliminate the U.S. Department of Education" — and that’s accurate. Project 2025 says federal education policy "should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated." The plan scales back the federal government’s role in education policy and devolves the functions that remain to other agencies.

Aside from eliminating the department, the project also proposes scrapping the Biden administration’s Title IX revision , which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also would let states opt out of federal education programs and calls for passing a federal parents’ bill of rights similar to ones passed in some Republican-led state legislatures.

Republicans, including Trump, have pledged to close the department, which gained its status in 1979 within Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s presidential Cabinet.

In one of his Agenda 47 policy videos, Trump promised to close the department and "to send all education work and needs back to the states." Eliminating the department would have to go through Congress.

In the graphic , the Harris campaign says Project 2025 allows "employers to stop paying workers for overtime work."

The document proposes that the Labor Department maintain an overtime threshold "that does not punish businesses in lower-cost regions (e.g., the southeast United States)." This threshold is the amount of money executive, administrative or professional employees need to make for an employer to exempt them from overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

But when a judge blocked the Obama rule, the Trump administration didn’t challenge the court ruling. Instead it set its own overtime threshold, which raised the amount, but by less than Obama.

RELATED: What Project 2025 would do with nonpolitical federal workers, immigration policy

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Call for Proposals: Midterm Evaluation of Project – Enhancing LGBTIQ+ inclusive learning spaces in Asia

Call for Proposals: Mid-term Evaluation of the 5-year Project: Enhancing LGBTIQ+ inclusive learning spaces in Asia through youth-led transformative actions and partnerships in the education sector

Organizational Unit: UNESCO Regional Office in Bangkok, Section for Education Contract type: Contract for Services (Institution/Organization) Duration: September 2024 – February 2025 (6 months, tentatively) Application Deadline: 31 August 2024, 17:00 hrs. Bangkok time (GMT+7:00)

Nature of the consultancy

UNESCO is seeking an evaluation consultancy contractor to undertake a comprehensive mid-term evaluation of the project on enhancing LGBTIQ+ inclusive learning spaces in Asia for the implementation period from October 2021 to October 2024. The mid-term evaluation aims to inform and improve the ongoing project by assessing its completed and ongoing activities.

Working in partnership with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer (LGBTIQ+) youth networks in 4 Asian countries, UNESCO Regional Office in Bangkok (UNESCO Bangkok) is supporting the design and implementation of innovative approaches to enhancing inclusion in education, while simultaneously advancing solutions to combating discrimination and violence in learning spaces based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression (SOGIE). The 5-year project, which is being implemented over the period 2021-2026 and is valued at USD 360,000, aims to achieve results in 2 outcome areas:

Outcome 1: Youth members of LGBTIQ+ networks have strengthened technical and advocacy skills to promote the creation of LGBTIQ+ inclusive learning spaces (approx. 60% project budget); and
Outcome 3 Learning spaces become more LGBTIQ+ inclusive, through implementation of tools and approaches by LGBTIQ+ youth leaders working in partnership with the education sector (approx. 40% project budget).

To deliver on these project outcomes, UNESCO Bangkok is collaborating with at least 1 youth network in each of the 4 project countries: Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines and Japan, to reach the following targets:

at least fifty youth per country context, as direct beneficiaries of skill-building activities;
at least 1 education institution (eg university), engaging at least 800 student peers, and 100 university faculty/management staff through advocacy and outreach approaches.

Key activities being implemented by country-level youth networks with UNESCO Bangkok’s technical and financial support include:

(i) co-creating with students, an advocacy approach and activities for LGBTIQ+ learner inclusion that responds to evidence of LGBTIQ+ learners’ needs and priorities in their respective education setting(s);

(ii) carrying out a rapid mapping of the skills and other capacity-needs to be strengthened among LGBTIQ+ and ally students for them to implement their advocacy approach and activities;

(iii) design and delivery of relevant skills/capacity-building workshop(s) for advocacy on LGBTIQ+ learner inclusion, that respond to the needs identified in the rapid mapping;

(iv) providing relevant technical and/or financial support (e.g. through small grants) for students to implement their advocacy approaches, activities and products and supporting the reach of their advocacy through diverse (digital and non-digital) channels as appropriate; and,

(v) tracking and documenting the progress of implementation by students of their advocacy approaches, activities and products through routine monitoring reports, stories or other means, capturing project reach and results in digital and non-digital formats

UNESCO is seeking an evaluation consultancy contractor to conduct a mid-term project evaluation for the implementation period from October 2021 to October 2024. The overall purpose of the mid-term evaluation is to inform and improve the ongoing project by assessing its completed and ongoing activities. Considering the Results Framework (see Annex A ) of this project, this mid-term evaluation will be done through

assessing implementation of the project to-date; assessing project outputs and immediate outcomes achieved to-date; and
identifying lessons and recommendations to inform implementation over the remaining project period – including corrective measures where needed.

In addition to overall guidance by UNESCO Bangkok, throughout the processing of carrying out the mid-term evaluation the contractor will receive additional technical inputs, review and feedback on draft consultancy outputs from a Project Reference Grou p that comprises ten regional/country organizations serving constituencies of diverse stakeholders working on LGBTIQ+ youth inclusion. The Project Reference Group has been convened by UNESCO Bangkok to provide overall guidance to and quality assurance of project implementation, communication, monitoring and reporting, and offer expert inputs and technical review of all the project’s activities and outputs.

The key stakeholders (users) of this evaluation are:

Internal to UNESCO: Education for Health and Well-being Team, Transformative Education Unit, Section for Education, UNESCO Bangkok and additional UNESCO field offices/HQs
External: Donor to this project
Secondary external stakeholders: Civil society organizations, young people, and individuals who are involved in the project.

Under the overall authority of the Regional Director, UNESCO Regional Office in Bangkok (UNESCO Bangkok), the overall guidance of the Chief of the Section for Education, and the direct supervision of the Regional Advisor on Education for Health and Well-being, the contractor is expected to undertake a comprehensive mid-term evaluation of the project on enhancing LGBTIQ+ inclusive learning spaces in Asia.

Specifically, the contractor shall carry out the following tasks:

Draft, in close consultation with UNESCO and the Project Reference Group, an evaluation inception report, which contains updated methods for data collection and analysis and a timeline with deliverables for the evaluation. This includes:
participating in an inception meeting with UNESCO and the Project Reference Group to review and confirm the consultancy’s scope, objectives, and expectations;
conducting a comprehensive desk review of project documents, including the project proposal, Result Framework (RF), work plans, progress reports, and other relevant literature;
mapping key stakeholders, including the UNESCO project team, implementing partners, beneficiaries (learners, teachers, supporting staff, and communities), and relevant parties; and,
preparing the narrative inception report that documents the overall methodology for the mid-term evaluation, proposes the key areas of investigation and associated data types, data collection approaches and tools.
Make any revisions, on the basis of feedback provided, to the overall methodology and data collection tools (eg as questionnaires, interview guides, and focus group discussion (FGD) guide, as appropriate)
Plan and carry out data collection and analysis according to the agreed methodology of the mid-term project evaluation. This potentially includes:
communicating with the interviewees and key informants to schedule the data collection period;
collecting primary data- where relevant - through online key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and surveys, ensuring the inclusion of diverse and marginalized voices, particularly from LGBTIQ+ youth; and
compiling, cleaning, and analyzing the collected data using appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods to identify strengths, weaknesses, trends, and areas for improvement.
Develop and submit to UNESCO Bangkok a full, final mid-term evaluation report and summary presentation of the key findings from the report. This includes:
preparing a draft mid-term evaluation narrative report against the project Result Framework (RF), including an executive summary, methodology, findings with case studies of youth-led projects highlighted, conclusions, and recommendations;
developing a presentation (e.g. Microsoft PowerPoint or Canva) summarizing the key findings, conclusions, and recommendations from the mid-term evaluation; and
submitting to UNESCO Bangkok the final mid-term evaluation report (maximum 25, A4 pages, plus annexes) incorporating feedback from stakeholder validation discussions at the learning exchange meeting, with specific recommendations to UNESCO on actions needed for enhancing implementation of the second-half of the 5-year project, along with the presentation and other relevant documents.
Deliver the summary presentation and co-facilitate with UNESCO, discussions at an in-person learning exchange meeting to react to, and validate the evaluation findings and recommendations. The learning exchange meeting will be organized by UNESCO in the first week of December 2024 (tentatively) in Bangkok, Thailand. The contractor will co-create with UNESCO the meeting’s discussion methodology and gather participants’ feedback to incorporate into the final mid-term evaluation narrative report.

UNESCO Bangkok will provide technical inputs to the development of all aspects of the mid-term evaluation process and will be responsible for the learning exchange meeting’s logistical preparations (i.e. arrangements and costs associated with venue, meals, accommodation, travel, per diem, document translation, simultaneous interpretation etc. as appropriate). Any travel costs by the contractor to participate in this learning exchange will be covered separately by UNESCO Bangkok.

Anticipated number of days level of effort

Tasks and number of anticipated days (55 days in total)

Draft an evaluation inception report and make relevant revisions as to the overall methodology and tools based on feedback provided. (8 days)
Perform data collection and analysis, and prepare a narrative executive summary of the evaluation findings and summary presentation (22 days)
Prepare a narrative summary of the mid-term evaluation findings, deliver the summary presentation and co-facilitate discussions at an in-person learning exchange to validate the evaluation findings and recommendations (15 days)
Finalize the mid-term evaluation full narrative report and revised summary presentation (10 days)

The contractor will be required to work during the period from September 2024 to February 2025 (tentatively). The deliverables for this consultancy shall be the following (submission dates provisional):

Deliverable 1

Updated evaluation inception report with methodology; revised desk review findings; first draft data collection tools

Timeline: 30 September 2024 Proportional payment: 20%

Deliverable 2

Draft narrative executive summary of the mid-term evaluation findings; draft presentation summarizing the key findings from the report; and draft facilitation guide/approach for validation discussions at an in-person learning exchange meeting

Timeline: 25 November 2024 Proportional payment: 40%

Deliverable 3

Draft mid-term evaluation narrative report incorporating feedback from validation discussions, with specific recommendations to UNESCO on actions needed

Timeline: 10 January 2025 Proportional payment: 30%

Deliverable 4

Final consultancy close-out report; including the revised final mid-term evaluation narrative report; revised presentation; and summary of consultancy’s contribution to the learning exchange

Timeline: 10 February 2025 Proportional payment: 10%

The contractor may be required to travel to carry out the tasks specified in the work assignment. A detailed travel cost should be presented and indicated as to be allocated within the contract fee (as part of a lump sum) to cover the daily subsistence allowance (DSA) and the cost of tickets for any authorized travel. No additional travel expenses beyond the agreed lump sum will be reimbursed. The DSA is only applicable to individuals undertaking assignments outside their usual place of residence or work. The contractor is responsible for arranging their own travel.

The contractor will be directly supervised by, and report to the Regional Advisor on Education for Health and Well-being, UNESCO Bangkok. In addition to the submission of contract deliverables, the contractor will routinely engage with the Regional Advisor and members of the Education for Health and Well-being team through emails and virtual meetings. Upon commencing the consultancy, the contractor will participate in an initial online meeting with UNESCO Bangkok to reconfirm the parameters of the consultancy and to update, as needed, the consultancy approach to work and timeline, to define required sub-tasks and interim outputs to be carried out as contractor and the supportive inputs required from UNESCO and collaborating partners on the respective activities.

Firm/institution Qualifications:

Qualifications:

The Firm/Institution must be a legally constituted entity with at least three (3) years of professional expertise in designing and conducting/leading evaluations of development projects
Must have demonstrated subject matter expertise in one or more of the following: monitoring and evaluation, educational assessment and evaluation, formal education, gender equality, inclusion in education, human rights advocacy, social justice, social science or other relevant fields.

Experience:

Demonstrated previous experience working with the UN and/or other multilateral, bilateral or civil society development partners.
A minimum of three (3) years of experience working in development project evaluations with a proven track record in successfully managing evaluations in education, gender equality, or social justice. Submission of a minimum two (2) references/supporting examples of relevant projects previously implemented.
Demonstratedprevious experience in working with especially socially vulnerable young people, including young LGBTIQ+ community.
Experience collaborating with UN agencies, multilateral, bilateral, or civil society development partners is highly desirable.
Strong project management skills, including managing timelines, coordinating with multiple stakeholders, and ensuring the timely delivery of high-quality outputs.
Proficiency in designing and delivering participatory workshops, both in-person and remotely.
Competence in using digital platforms and tools for remote communication, data collection, and collaboration.
Familiarity with common data analysis software (e.g., Microsoft Excel, Google Surveys) and relevant statistical tools

Language Requirements:

The Firm/Institution must have a high level of proficiency in English, both written and spoken, to ensure clear communication and the production of high-quality reports and materials.
Proficiency in a language/s spoken in the Asia-Pacific region is desirable.

Lead Consultant

An advanced university degree (Master's or equivalent) in fields such as: monitoring and evaluation, educational assessment and evaluation, formal education, gender equality, inclusion in education, human rights advocacy, social justice, social science or other relevant fields.
A minimum of five (5) years of post-certification practical involvement and professional field experience in any of the pertinent technical domains mentioned above.
A minimum of three (3) years of professional expertise in designing and conducting/leading evaluations of development projects
Experience in applying quality and quantitative evaluation methods in social sciences research. Submission of at least two reference/supporting example of relevant projects previously managed.

Skills/Competencies

Excellent analytical, oral and written communication skills, including the production of written content for both specialist and generalist audiences
Experience in participatory workshop design, facilitation and evaluation (in-person and remote modalities)
Familiarity with common data analysis software (i.e. Microsoft Excel and relevant statistical tools) and data collection applications (i.e. Google Surveys).
Strong understanding of UNESCO’s mandate in education and its strategy on education for health and wellbeing (Desirable).
Experience working in the Asia-Pacific context and demonstrated understanding of the experiences of project evaluation and monitoring, LGBTIQ+ inclusion and advocacy, and educational assessment (Desirable).
Prior experience of working with young people and supporting their meaningful engagement leadership (Desirable).
Previous experience working with the UN and/or other multilateral, bilateral and civil society development partners (Desirable).
Previous exposure to diverse linguistic and cultural contexts across multiple countries concurrently, involving coordination with partners in this operational setting (Desirable).

Language:

Fluency in spoken and written English.

Junior Consultant:

Education

Minimum one year training or experience in a field related to education, social justice, social sciences, gender equality

Experience:

Demonstrated experience in working with youth-led groups or networks, particularly with/for LGBTIQ+ young people, supported by at least one (1) reference or example of relevant project implementation support.

Skills/Competencies:

Familiarity with common data analysis software (i.e. Microsoft Excel and relevant statistical tools) and data collection applications (i.e. Google Surveys) (Desirable)

The consultancy is open to suitably qualified organizations/institutions/companies.

Suitably qualified organizations that satisfy the eligibility criteria are invited to submit an Expression of Interest in these TORS, composed of both Technical and Financial Proposals.

The entire Expression of Interest should be in English and should not exceed 10, A4 pages, including reference to relevant examples/reports of successfully carrying out similar or comparable assignments.

Technical Proposal

The technical proposal must include the following information

A cover letter identifying relevant contact information (organizational name, telephone and email address) and why you are interested in the consultancy and the project area.
Short approach to work identifying the specific components of these TORs and how the intended objectives/outputs/delivery shall be addressed, and including specific references to relevant examples of successfully undertaking equivalent or comparable assignments .
Timeline for delivering the key activities and expected deliverables.
Rationale as to why your organization is best suited to carry out this work with UNESCO’s support, together with relevant examples that demonstrate your experience carrying out similar initiatives (see Item VI. of these TORs on Qualifications and Experience Requirements).
Detailed CVs of all the qualified key personnel that lead/contribute to this assignment. (see Item VI. of these TORs on Qualification and Experience Requirements).
Profile of the Firm/Institution.
Financial proposal, quoted in US dollars, that is aligned with the tasks of the work assignment. The financial proposal should indicate the costed level of effort of the various components of the assignment, with rate per unit (cost per person/day), each relatively to the other.

UNESCO places great emphasis on ensuring that the objectives of the work assignment, as described in the Terms of Reference, are met. Accordingly, in evaluating the proposals for the assignment, attention will focus first and foremost on the technical elements. From those proposals deemed suitable in terms of the criteria in the Terms of Reference, UNESCO shall select the proposal that offers the Organization the best value for money. 

Summary of outcomes, outputs and activities

Outcome N°1 LGBTIQ+ young people in the target institutions at regional and national levels in Asia are empowered to engage education communities for creating LGBTIQ+ inclusive learning spaces, through their strengthened technical and advocacy skills

Output N°1: evidence-based advocacy and community mobilization tools adapted/created and finalized

Activity 1: Develop methodology and results framework the 5-year project
Activity 2: Resource development/ adaptation of advocacy and community mobilization resources by and with youth activists, including creative content development and product design workshops facilitated by externally recruited experts and partners, including staff from Dior. Language translation as needed.
Activity 3: Tools/resources ‘finalized’ in terms of content and design and made available in multiple languages and freely accessible online for further contextual adaptations.

Output N°2: training approach developed, training activities and workshops designed and held with at least 50 youth for skills-building in using the tools created in each country implementation setting

Activity 1: Ongoing skills-building of youth members of LGBTIQ+ networks as inclusion change makers in education spaces through peer-mentoring approaches and dedicated workshops with youth to engage with the various tools and resources produced.

Outcome N°2 Target education institutions in at least 4 countries in Asia develop a more LGBTIQ+ inclusive climate through increased awareness, more gender-equitable community attitudes and non-discriminatory regulations and practices, enabled by project tools implemented by LGBTIQ+ youth leaders working in partnership with education officials/practitioners

Output N°1: project tools implemented by trained youth in education institutions in at least 4 countries across the life of the project, with progress monitored and results documented

Activity 1: LGBTIQ+ youth in each country context implement advocacy approaches to target desired changes in their educational institutions, reaching at least 800 student peers, 100 university faculty/management staff.

Activity 2: LGBTIQ+ youth in each country context monitor, document and communicate the results of their efforts, including through creative and digital means such as video journaling and storytelling, with additional skills-building and mentoring on this approach supported by Dior staff where appropriate.

Activity 3: External evaluation of the project conducted at mid and end point of the five-year project cycle, through quantitative and qualitative means

Activity 4: Multi-country project reference group of LGBTIQ+ youth/student activists established to facilitate cross-country learning exchange and cooperation and drive project innovation

Activity 5: Final multi-country evaluation report developed, including on the reach, potential impacts and sustainability of efforts at the end of the project cycle

Output N° 2: Project results institutionally and publicly disseminated through various assets, formats and channels to increase awareness among education sector partners and LGBTIQ+ networks nationally and in the region to facilitate roll-out

Activity 1: Design and strategic communication of pilot results, including through media assets, UNESCO and Dior’s communication channels.

Activity 2: Regional amplification of key advocacy messages including on key UN commemorative days; knowledge exchange coordinated by UNESCO Bangkok office including through its thematic youth dialogue series

Activity 3: At least 1 regional learning and policy exchange among LGBTIQ+ youth networks and advocates, education practitioners and policy makers, organized in the sidelines of a key regional inter-governmental/high-level meeting or event

The Expression of Interest must be received by email at ehwb.bgk(at)unesco.org no later than 17:00 hrs, Bangkok time on 31 August 2024 . Only complete applications submitted before the deadline will be considered. Applications received after the deadline will be rejected.

Queries of a technical nature about these TORS may be directed to: ehwb.bgk(at)unesco.org

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Measuring physical activity

Setting main focuses and elements of SiM

Establishing a partnership with ministries

Piloting phase

Forming the interdisciplinary team and international network

Co-creation with schools and network building: school visits, supporting schools’ team building, schools’ action plans and schools’ networking

Developing intervention tools for active lessons

Developing intervention tools for active recess

Action research

Communicative support and advocacy

Partnership with ministries and other partners

Lessons learnt and primary indicators of success

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