The dust is settling on the start of the summer term. For many schools, this means that the tri-annual mission of establishing the ‘games lists’ will be largely complete, with the late changes accommodated – or not – and a status quo established. This provides a clear opportunity to analyse the success of the programme – or otherwise.

For many schools, the significant factor is the number of pupils, in each year group, who choose to remain engaged within traditional games. In the summer, this means the numbers who choose to take part in Cricket, to join the meaningful...

Exercised by Daniel Lieberman

Exercised is the first book of its kind by a leading scientific expert. Daniel Lieberman is an anthropologist, who examines the concept of exercise and lifestyle from an evolutionary perspective. He concludes that humans never evolved to exercise. They are hardwired for moderate exertion throughout each day, not triathlons or treadmills. Drawing on over a decade of high-level scientific research and eye-opening insights from evolutionary biology and anthropology, Lieberman explains precisely how exercise can promote health.

He considers the ways in which modern, industrialised societies have created a lifestyle that is contrary to evolutionary...

The Spring Term has always been an uninspiring time for school sport. Dark nights, cold and wet weather, frosty mornings and mock exams. It has always been a season demanding dogged persistence from teachers and coaches and anticipating better times ahead. Those better times used to be the Summer Term – long, sunny days accompanied by the more relaxed pace of Cricket, Athletics and Tennis. After a miserable British winter, this can finally provide a climate conducive to sport for an energised population of staff and pupils. It reinforces the conviction that school sport really is solar-powered.

However, the...