Piloting of The Alps
I have had the most amazing support from a number of schools' head teachers, teaching assistants and teachers. As a result, The Alps manual describing how to deliver to deliver evidence-based activities for children with motor skill difficulties has really taken shape. Most of the activities are now illustrated with photographs of children demonstrating the activities and teaching assistants report that they understand the descriptions and don't believe that they will have any difficulties delivering the activities. It will still need further refinements; these will take place during and after the piloting of the progamme in schools.
The Alps motor skills programme manual
Starting in January 2020, three schools began piloting The Alps. This testing of an evidence-based programme of motor skills activities was the culmination of several years of hard work, and the schools have friendly staff and children, so this was big moment for my research.
What is the aim of piloting of The Alps?
The aim of piloting the manual is to identify any difficulties that teaching assistants experience when they use the manual, and any obstacles they encounter with delivery of the activities.How is piloting carried out?
Teaching assistants were presented with the manual at least two weeks before they were expected to deliver The Alps motor skills progtrmme activities during the school day to children that they knew had poor motor skills. One school delivered the activities to Reception class; one school used a group of 10 - 15 children; and the third school implemented the programme on three children with poor motor skills. Once they had delivered the activities on a few occasions, I visited the school to observe the teaching assistants delivering the activities and the to meet the assistants afterwards. In this way, I was able to gather information from teaching assistants to find out what obstacles they met with delivering any activities, whether there were any unclear instructions in the manual, and why (if at all) any activities were not delivered as the manual intended. From this feedback, I could amend the manual and make the final changes to improve its clarity.
Some of the children who are participating in The Alps programme piloting were assessed using a new outcome measure called FUNMOVES. It is being developed be PhD student Lucy Eddy and is designed to be delivered by school teachers in PE, in order for school staff to identify those children who could experience academic difficulties and restricted physical activity due to poor fundamental motor skills.
How is piloting progressing?
The COVID pandemic quickly put a halt to the piloting phase of this research but I did receive useful feedback from two schools before the lockdown began.This has improved the clarity with how to deliver the programme of activities. Since the children returned to schools, I have received a written summary from a third school which suggested that the manual is clear and easy to use, and that the activities are easy to deliver using the manual.
How can schools help now?
I am seeking more schools to pilot the manual and activities using the procedure above, with teaching assistants delivering activities to children using the manual and then meeting me, to discuss any difficulties that they encountered.
All schools that help to develop the manual will receive a copy of the manual, including an updated version every time we make changes to improve the manual. These schools will not be able to participate in the future scientific trial - the randomised controlled trial - that is planned to evaluate properly the benefits of The Alps but it seems unfair to deny them the opportunity to implement The Alps after they have been so helpful in contributing to its production. It is important to remember, though, that although the activities are evidence-based, and that research studies have suggested that they produce large improvements in children's motor skills, we don't yet have any evidence that The Alps will produce similar improvements.
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