Physically active learning in the Finnish school system : many names, one approach

The decrease in students’ daily physical activity over the last ten to fifteen years and daily passive habits have led to the need for the school to support physical activity more in order to safeguard students’ well-being, functional capacity and health. Physically active learning is a learning approach that incorporates movement and physical activity into the learner’s sense-making and learning process. In Finnish research literature, research on physically active learning is not yet directly found, yet synonymous terms and links include action-based learning and physically active school days, thus introducing a research gap. This narrative literature review examines physically active learning in the Finnish school context, focusing on its stakeholders and the surrounding education system.

The different stakeholders that emerge for physically active learning include teachers, the school as an institution, educational policy, the curriculum and the Schools on the Move national initiative. Teachers’ perspectives conceptualize physically active learning through lenses of teaching practice, experience, professional growth, sense-making, teaching methods, as well as opportunities and challenges posed by the learning approach. At the policy level, physically active learning emerges through recommendations for frequent use of action-based methods in the classroom, movement breaks and movement integration, developing the structure of the school day to support more physical activity, and physically active ways of working during lesson time and the school day. In practical teacher resources, physically active learning emerges through working methods, subject-specific and general action-based learning activities, as well as movement integration into lessons.

The reviewed research literature situates physically active learning as a learning, teaching and working method that integrates and intertwines the autonomous classroom with the school as an organization. In considering the school as an organization, the research literature links physically active learning to the operational culture of the school and the positionality of the school in the national framework and educational policy in Finland. This may have significance for educational policy makers, municipality representatives, headteachers, as well as in-service teachers for mapping out the current state of physically active learning in Finnish education.