Member Article

Business milestone for Play Fitness

A SOUTH Tyneside company is celebrating five years of keeping schoolchildren fit through the use of its outdoor gym equipment.

Play Fitness has notched up almost 70 installations in playgrounds across the north east and has just introduced a new infant range, aimed at children aged four to seven.

To celebrate, they have launched a design competition to give youngsters the chance to win a new Key Stage 1 trim trail for their school, worth £12,000.

Sales consultant Mark Carter said: “It has been five years since we installed our first primary school outdoor gym and we have worked very closely with schools in South Tyneside and the north east as a whole in that time.

“To celebrate the five-year milestone of helping children become more active, we wanted to offer this competition for a local school to win this range of fun trail equipment.”

Play Fitness was established in 2008 and developed its range of innovative products with the support of the North East Chamber of Commerce.

The idea came in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, as China recognised the global issue of obesity and flooded its community spaces with outdoor gym equipment.

Inspired by this easily accessible form of exercise, Play Fitness found its niche in scaling down the size of the equipment to make it suitable for children.

Its first outdoor gym was installed in October 2010, at St Oswald’s RC Primary School in Nash Avenue, Whiteleas, South Shields.

The company has since rolled out its products to the majority of schools in South Tyneside, as well as other parts of the north east, and has ambitions to export the equipment.

It has expanded its base on Forest Road Industrial Estate, in South Shields, and its workforce has more than doubled in size from three to eight people.

After concentrating on outdoor gyms for children over the age of seven, the company has now developed a collection of low-level adventure trail products for infants.

The first one is now up and running at Monkton Infants School in South Shields, funded by a £10,000 grant from the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All scheme, with a further £5,900 coming from the school’s sports premium grant.

Acting deputy headteacher, Hayley Winter, said: “The outdoor gym equipment is fantastic and the children really enjoy it. They use it every day at playtimes and lunchtimes and also in PE.”

The infant range features a number of exciting activities designed to test the smallest bodies and minds, including balance beams, scramble tunnel, mini hump back bridge, stepping stones, stepping flowers and stretch posts.

Mr Carter said: “They create a fun way of introducing exercise into the playground. The pieces can be used individually, or placed together to create a fun obstacle course, which helps to improve balance and co-ordination.”

Play Fitness is giving schools in the north east the chance to win one of its new trim trails by asking pupils to design a piece of outdoor exercise equipment.

The closing date for the competition is Friday, December 18, and the winner will be announced at the start of term 2016.

For more information, visit www.playfitness.co.uk/competition.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Angela Reed .