This year’s National Fitness Day – the largest celebration of physical activity in the UK – will see schools included in the initiative for the first time as organiser ukactive targets a bigger and better event than ever before.

Founded by the énergie Group, ukactive now co-ordinates the day, which will see thousands of people don their exercise gear and flock to gyms, health clubs, leisure centres and parks around the country to take part in free ‘Power Half Hour’ exercise events. Last year saw nearly 2,000 venues open their doors to run free ‘Power-Half-Hour’ exercise sessions – reaching 27 million people – and ukactive hopes that casting the net even wider will see greater numbers get active on 9 September 2015.

A fundamental aspect of this years’ National Fitness Day is getting schools involved. Having recently renewed its efforts to tackle childhood inactivity ukactive will be working closely with the education sector to help them promote the benefits of being physically active in school. Primary schools across the UK will be asked to pledge to take part in the day by running activities designed to get their children more active.

Each school taking part will receive a tailored toolkit of information to help them put on whole day of activities across the curriculum. Efforts will focus on getting children of all ages to positively engage with physical activity, building habits that will set them up to be an active adult.

“There is nothing more important to the sector than celebrating the fun of fitness and engaging the public,” said ukactive executive director Steven Ward.

“That is why we are reaching out to everyone in our industry to get involved in whatever way they can to help us make it the most active day of the year.”

With several months to go until the day itself, ukactive has said it is planning to unveil further plans for live events, ambassadors and brand partners in due course.

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FEATURE: ukactive update – Getting the UK active