Pupils and staff at a Peninsula school will run a mile a day to help children concentrate in class.


Kilcreggan Primary School has adopted the daily mile challenge, following a nationally acclaimed scheme at a Stirling primary school, which sees all pupils run a mile a day.


Frances Bretman, head teacher at the school, said she has considered introducing it since St Ninian’s school hit the headlines earlier this year.


Ms Bretman said she hoped the scheme would continue, with initial plans to have children running a mile a day in rain or shine until the summer holidays.


As reported in the Advertiser recently, Rhu Primary pupils are running a mile a day for a month, to run the distance from Rhu to Rio, the host city for 2016’s Olympic Games.


This initiative is said to aid concentration as well as fitness, with evidence suggesting pupils perform better when physical activity is used as a break from classroom learning.


Children return with better attention, concentration and motivation.


The children are not out of their classrooms for more than 15 minutes, although some pupils complete the distance in a shorter time.


Kilcreggan has a circuit of six times around the playground to measure the mile.


Mrs Bretman said: “We have had good feedback from parents.

"We are hoping to get the nursery pupils to do it as well, I was waiting to see how the P1s did but they are coping fine.


“They are not timetabled, they do it as and when teachers fit it in.

"It’s left at the teachers discretion, they do it when there is a natural break in the day.

“This is on top of the two hours physical education each week as well.”


Mrs Bretman said the mile a day was helping the children’s fitness already, with some pupils who had been walking in the first few days are now running parts of it.


A spokeswoman for Argyll and Bute Council said: “Whilst we think this is a good idea and support schools being involved it is not something that we would be insisting all our schools take up.


“It is up to each individual school to plan two hours quality PE per pupil each week.”