ACTIVATE in the classroom
2^nd Edition Schemes

Age Levels 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13 by VAL SABIN
Inclusive, whole class, age levelled, progressive exercise programmes that improve agility, balance, co-ordination and concentration.

"Activate in the Classroom" was created and designed by Val Sabin to be easy to use, age specific, inclusive, progressively staged, repeated patterns of movement with music programmes. The activities are designed to help pupils become more agile, better balanced, better coordinated, better controlled and more precise in their movements. Pupils improve their listening attention and concentration capabilities as their neurological systems also become better, fitter and faster.

These age level physical fluency programmes are also designed to improve the development and efficiency of pupils' cerebellar-vestibular systems. This is because of clinical practice and research findings that link a wide variety of dyslexic, dyspraxic, ADHD, Aspergic and various learning dysfunction symptoms to neurological developmental delay. All pupils in school Activate classes are improving in most aspects of their physical fluency and many other benefits are bing reported.

WHAT IS ACTIVATE IN THE CLASSROOM?

Hundreds of thousands of pupils now use Activate. These patterns of movement to music programmes take a whole class of pupils through 3-dimensional repetitive movement activities within their personal stand-up space. Each exercise is to music which enables the tempo and rhythm in the movements of the pupils to be varied through changes in the music. The pupils are also having practice in the conscious active listening skills of "filtering", "analysing" and "responding" as they move to the music. Their listening skills, attention spans or concentration stamina also gradually increases.

The in-class patterns of movement to music are designed for daily use at 9am, after registration, for about 10 minutes and for 5 minutes immediately after lunch at the start of the afternoon. The excercises can also be used as energisers or refocus activities at any time during the day.

Activate movement to music programmes are repeated for 2 weeks, then moved up a step through a progressive and developmental 36 week structure. The extra activity extensions provided can be introduced at a speed to suit the class. Every 9th week there is provision for the pupils to created their own programme from their favourites or their own original movement ideas.

The exercises in the progressive steps utilise the best vertical movement principles that are possible standing up in the restricted space of a classroom. Moving pupils to an adjacent hall or playground to enable equipment to be used is not necessary and a change of clothing is not required

The activities are fun to do and many of the extensions are curriculum-linked, e.g. as the scheme levels progress into combination activities it is possible to include rhythmic recitation of numbers, tables, words, letters, spelling, second languages, poems, historical lists etc. Further combinations and progressions in the later age scheme levels include interaction in pairs and opportunities for individual creativity of movement. Each pack comes with 3 programmes - Frogs, Rabbits, Kangaroos - a DVD for each programme, two complete quick reference DVDs and 3 CDs of the music. There are approximately 120 activities, progressions and extensions in each Activate age level pack for 5, 7, 9, 11 or 13.

       

Each age level scheme covers 2 school years, with the Rabbits programme for the younger year and the Kangaroos programme for the older year. The slower Frogs programmes being for Special Needs groups or for slower groups of children. The Frogs, Rabbits and Kangaroos programmes for each age level are integrated to allow movement between them if necessary.

WHY IS ACTIVATE IN THE CLASSROOM SO BENEFICIAL?

The Activate exercises are particularly designed to improve various elements of physical fluency, stimulate the cerebellar-vestibular systems and intensively exercise the neural connections between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. The core activity, progression and extension exercises provide a very comprehensive upper and lower body gross-motor exercise range. Also included are fine motor exercises, balance moves, hand-eye co-ordination moves, eye exercises and speech patterns, all to sound rhythms.

THE BENEFITS OF ACTIVATE
(When done every day!)

Easy to observe and evaluate benefits:-

• Children find Activate fun to do.
• There is 75 minutes per week of extra High Quality Physical Activity.
• Children increase their fitness and stamina.
• Children improve their posture and core strength.
• Children improve many other physical fluency elements such as:- agility, balance, co-ordination, precision and control of movement, flexibility and rhythm.

Often reported benefits:-

• Reported to improve concentration focus, attention spans and ability to listen.
• Reported to increase self-awareness, confidence and self-esteem.
• Many reported improvements in various personal, social, emotional, academic and behavioural capabilities.

Designed into the programmes benefits:-

• Increases/enlarges children's banks of physically fluent and automatised movements which can then be utilized unconsciously and automatically in many sports, activity and everyday situations.
• Extends the sometimes limited movement capability governed by the basal dominances of an individual.
• Helps to further suppress certain primitive reflexes that may not be inhibited enough and which if still in evidence can hinder motor control, eye functioning, hand-eye co-ordination, perceptual skills and other functions throughout life.

Other beneficial applications and outcomes:-

• The Activate patterns of movement are being used in some individual cases to ease the conditions of dyspraxia, dyslexia, attention disorders, aspergism and related learning and behavioural disorders.
• Several schools report that over a period of time the Activate exercises have been instrumental in reducing the weight of most overweight children at their schools.

INFLUENCES

The influences inspiring the development and direction of the Activate schemes:

• the pioneering research work of Harold Levinson who since 1973 has been continually reporting on the significance of deficiencies in the cerebellar - vestibular systems found in a majority of people with dyslexia and with various other learning dysfunctions.
• the effectiveness of sound therapies arranged by Alfred Tomatis has been kept in mind during the design and selection of our activities to music.
• the pioneering research, therapeutic and published works of Peter Blythe and Sally Goddard-Blythe of the Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology on the primitive and postural reflexes, neurological developmental delay and its remediation by movement.
• the published works of Carla Hannaford on the neurophysiological basis of learning. How Basal Dominances influence Learning Styles and the implications for all learners and teachers.
• Wynford Dore and Dr Roy Rutherford of the Dore Achievement Centres for widely publicising the benefits of their individually designed repetitive physical movement therapy programmes, particularly in "helping the systems of Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Attention Deficit Disorder, ADHD, learning and behavioural difficulties and under achieving at school".
• elements in the Dennisons' "Brain Gym" approach. Various martial arts training movements and other age-old body improvement approaches have also been found to be useful.
• the extensive experience and talent of Val Sabin revealed in over 30 of her comprehensive teaching and training manuals containing over 5,000 gym, games, dance, patterns of movement and play activities for all ages.

The extra balance and eye exercise extensions in the second edition have been added as a result of a greater understanding of their importance. This has followed neuroscience of movement tutorials from DR. Roy Rutherford, the Research Director of the Dore Achievement Centres, generously arranged by Wynford Dore. Second edition programmes now contain around 120 core activities, progressions and extensions in each Activate 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13 age level scheme.

THE ACTIVATE TEACHING MANUALS

Each Activate manual describes in words and shows in figure-diagram forms precisely how each activity needs to be executed for the pupils to fully benefit. This allows the teacher to be able to stand in front of the class and lead the exercises. Alternatively, the DVDs also show each morning and afternoon session with movements being performed to the music thus allowing the class to proceed by watching the DVD. Alternatively, some teachers allow various pupils to lead the class in the Activate movements. A simple ten-point physical fluency checklist for visual assessment is now included.

COMMENTS

"the best thing I arranged for my schools during my 3-year Partnership Development Plan."

One Partnership Development Managers description of Activate (12/6)

"We would not consider not using Activate. The benefits have been so great."

A Head comments