Brochure for Principals

They will follow your lead.
Lead them toward success.

Physical activity: good for the heart, the head and the soul.

You win as a principal — and your staff and students win —  because physical activity can:

Increase self-esteem and capacity for learning. 

Help kids handle stress. 

Build and maintain healthy bones, muscles and joints. 

Help control weight. 

Get kids moving in the right direction.

Principals for a physically active school.

Educating children is a big, yet wonderful, responsibility. Developing active, fit, and healthy students requires integration of physical activity into every aspect of school life.

Ensure that your students develop the skills to be physically active. Provide them with quality physical education taught by a physical education specialist. 

Make the physical education program an integral part of back-to school night and parent-teacher conferences. 

Get students and staff going each day with physical activity during morning announcements. 

Use physical activity (such as extra recess) as part of a rewards program. 

Announce a school-wide poster or essay contest about the importance of being physically active. Display the posters and read essay snippets during announcements. 

Plan assemblies that excite students into moving. Invite local sports heroes to tell their stories, police officers to talk bicycle safety, and area clubs to demonstrate lesser-known sports. 

Teachers are the link to success.

Encourage teachers to integrate physical activity into lessons, homework and special projects. They can get specific ideas from a free teacher’s brochure at http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/PhysicalActivity. 

Allow physical activity breaks in the classroom. Offer to lead activity breaks in different classrooms throughout the year. 

Provide teachers with incentives to sponsor an after-school physical activity club such as intramural basketball or a jump rope team. 

Ask your physical education teacher to serve as the school’s physical activity coordinator. Encourage him/her to provide the staff and PTA with ideas and resources for integrating physical activity into the school environment. 

Take an active interest in the health of your staff. Hold walk-and-talk meetings. Utilize team-building activities that incorporate physical activity. Implement a staff wellness program and participate in it yourself. 

Making parents part of the plan.

Many hands make light work. Ask the parent-teacher association (PTA) to help you make regular physical activity a reality.

Sponsor physically active family events such as a square dance, Saturday-morning fun walk/run or a kite-flying festival. 

Help supervise after-school physical activity programs so that more students can participate. 

Organize a summer camp fair at school in the spring. Invite local day and overnight camps to exhibit and talk with families about camp activities. 

Conduct a fundraiser to purchase new sports equipment or a donation drive for gently-used equipment from families, fitness clubs and recreation centers. 

Build or renovate a playground, outdoor track or fitness trail on school property. 

Coordinate an effort to get more students walking or biking to school. Use the Kids-Walk-to-School Guide as a starter kit; go to http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/kidswalk. 

Get more ideas about making physical activity a regular part family life from a free parent's brochure at http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/PhysicalActivity. 

Make your vision of a healthy school into a reality.
Weave physical activity into your school’s very essence.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
VERB
CDC Foundation
MetLife Foundation

This brochure was made possible by a grant to the CDC Foundation from MetLife Foundation. 

Order copies of this free brochure online or call (888) 231-6405.