Building an active school in its extracurricular dimension: A case study in a portuguese school +

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to characterize a Portuguese secondary school in the Greater Oporto area, in its extracurricular dimension, as a starting point for implementing a project for an Active School. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews are used as instruments and the data collected are treated with thematic analysis and simple descriptive statistics. After themes, opportunities and barriers are described, the results obtained are presented. The work concludes that, although the educational community shows interest in joining the project, a conceptual framework has to be defined and a previous awareness raising process has to be developed. Furthermore, a leader and a team have to be appointed to mobilize an aggregating vision of that process as well as to implement motivating, systematic and sustainable physical activity programs.