Using a multi-stakeholder experience-based design process to co-develop the Creating Active Schools Framework

UK and global policies recommend whole-school approaches to improve childrens’ inadequate physical activity (PA) levels. Yet, recent meta-analyses establish current interventions as ineffective due to suboptimal implementation rates and poor sustainability.

The study’s aim was to co-develop a whole-school PA framework using the double diamond design approach (DDDA).

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time practitioners, policymakers and researchers have co-designed a whole-school PA framework from initial conception. The novelty of CAS (Creating Active Schools Framwork) resides in identifying the multitude of interconnecting components of a whole-school adaptive sub-system; exposing the complexity required to create systems change.

The framework can be used to shape future policy, research and practice to embed sustainable PA interventions within schools. To enact such change, CAS presents a potential paradigm shift, providing a map and method to guide future co-production by multiple experts of PA initiatives ‘with’ schools, while abandoning outdated traditional approaches of implementing interventions ‘on’ schools.