The Daily Mile™ Celebrates Greater Manchester Moving Towards Becoming The First Daily Mile City-Region

The Daily Mile, supported by INEOS, is celebrating Greater Manchester taking a huge step towards becoming the first Daily Mile city-region.

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, and Elaine Wyllie, Founder of The Daily Mile joined forces to encourage schools across Greater Manchester to get moving.

In March 2018, Andy Burnham joined Elaine Wyllie, founder of The Daily Mile, and made the commitment for Greater Manchester (GM) to become the world’s first Daily Mile City-Region. Today we are celebrating taking a step closer to achieving that ambition as we reach the milestone of 500 primary schools signed up to The Daily Mile across Greater Manchester.

As Greater Manchester approached this milestone, GreaterSport ran a competition for school children to design a running jersey to celebrate the achievement. Hundreds of children from across the city region sent in their designs, the winning design selected by Elaine Wyllie will be presented to its creator Freya Costello from Willows Primary School, and to Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham. The jersey will be able to sit alongside the Daily Mile plimsolls that Andy was presented with by Elaine Wyllie in 2018.

The Daily Mile, supported by INEOS, is a transformative initiative where children run, jog wheel or walk for 15 minutes every day, in which time, most people will average a mile or more. The initiative has enjoyed phenomenal success since it was started by then Headteacher Elaine Wyllie just eight years ago at a single primary school in Stirling. Today three million children across 12,000 schools are now running a mile a day.

Currently, Greater Manchester has some of the lowest levels of physical activity within the entire United Kingdom. As it stands, 60.4% of children and young people are not meeting the Chief Medical Officer guidelines for physical activity, with 37.7% being classified as overweight or obese by the time they reach year six, according to the National Child Measurement Programme data, 2019/2020.

Throughout the last two years, The Daily Mile has grown in popularity across the region as it has worked to tackle the low levels of physical activity, particularly amongst members of Greater Manchester’s youngest population. In 2018 Greater Manchester marked its commitment to becoming the first Daily Mile City Region, aiming for all nurseries, schools, universities, and workplaces  to adopt The Daily Mile.

Elaine Wyllie, Founder of The Daily Mile said: “It is so exciting to see so many schools and children get involved in The Daily Mile and this Jersey Competition. Community and wellness are so important at the moment and getting moving everyday can really help our mental health. With Covid-19 shutting schools again, staying physically and mentally healthy is more important than ever. I had so much fun picking the winner of the Jersey Competition and am just sorry I couldn’t pick more than one! We now have an amazing 3 million children running The Daily Mile and I hope to see ever more cities reach the milestone that Greater Manchester has!”

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester said: “I’m delighted that 500 primary schools in Greater Manchester are now taking part in The Daily Mile. I want all young people to have the best start in life, and that’s why initiatives like The Daily Mile are so important to help ensure that all of Greater Manchester’s children have the opportunity to be physically active.

I want to encourage all schools who aren’t yet signed up to get involved so that their students can benefit from the physical and mental health benefits that moving more can bring. Here in Greater Manchester we remain committed to becoming the world’s first Daily Mile City-Region, and I look forward to seeing the number of schools and other education settings taking part continue to grow.”

With the majority of children now being home-schooled due to the reintroduction of a national lockdown, The Daily Mile have updated and re-launched their #DailyMileAtHome resources to support families to keep moving safely. The challenges help families to get outside and moving together each day to help look after their physical and mental health during these difficult times.

Hayley Lever GreaterSport CEO and GM Moving Exec Lead added: “Helping people keep moving is arguably more important now than ever before as we see the impacts of coronavirus on children’s activity levels. With the intermittent closure of schools, sports clubs and leisure facilities during the pandemic, children have had less opportunities to be active. Utilising the Daily Mile at Home resources whilst children are unable to attend school will be a great way for families to move more together, helping to look after their health and wellbeing and hopefully create healthy habits long after the lockdown.”