The London Marathon Foundation is awarding £1.19 million and London Marathon Events is supporting the delivery of the partnership, helping junior parkrun to grow across the UK
This is the biggest ever investment in junior parkrun, with the three-year development partnership set to enable more than 300,000 additional children to participate in junior parkrun events by 2026.
There is an urgent need for initiatives that encourage children – especially those in areas of high deprivation – to engage in regular physical activity. 53 per cent of children are not meeting the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines of taking part in an average of 60 minutes of sport and physical activity a day, as recorded in Sport England’s 2022 Active Lives Children and Young People Survey. Moreover, NHS Digital’s National Child Measurement Programme, England – 2021-22, found the prevalence of children living with obesity in reception and Year 6 was more than twice as high in the most deprived areas than in the least deprived areas.
Our support for junior parkrun provides a free pathway into physical activity for hundreds of thousands of children and helps to establish a lifetime habit for children and young people of being physically active.
Inspiring children to become active is a key priority across the London Marathon Group. Since 1981, the London Marathon Foundation has awarded more than £100 million to initiatives that support the our vision of inspiring activity, including hundreds of projects that encourage regular, sustained activities for children and young people – from playground refurbishments to youth club activities. London Marathon Events delivers a range of outreach programmes in schools, including work with The Daily Mile Foundation and the creation of the TCS Mini London Marathon which is already inspiring hundreds of thousands of children across the UK to get active.
Our development partnership with parkrun global, the charity behind the free, weekly 2km junior parkrun events for children aged four to 14, aligns perfectly with the our vision of inspiring activity, and has the potential to transform youth participation in physical activity across the UK.
Together with junior parkrun, we'll address critical issues concerning the health and wellbeing of children by:
- Increasing access: establishing more than 120 new junior parkrun events across the UK, focusing in areas of deprivation and communities where inactivity is at its highest, and growing existing junior parkruns with lower attendance.
- School engagement: working with schools to support and promote junior parkrun and establish a pathway for schools to become ‘parkrun primaries’.
- Fostering inclusivity: welcoming children of all abilities and backgrounds to participate, creating a sense of belonging and community.
- Building insight: improving understanding of the health and social outcomes associated with participating in junior parkrun and how to remove current barriers to participation.
- Promoting organisational sustainability: supporting the future scale and scope of junior parkrun beyond the three-year funding partnership.
Catherine Anderson, London Marathon Foundation’s Executive Director, said: “With the impacts of the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis affecting access to activity, more fun, free and accessible activities for children are desperately needed – and our ambitious new development partnership with junior parkrun will provide just that.
“Together, we’re now championing a healthier and more active future for children and young people across the UK – especially those living in deprived areas. We’re excited to get underway and see the impact this development partnership will have in inspiring children to develop regular, active habits that will improve the wellbeing of future generations and of the nation.”
Chrissie Wellington OBE, parkrun UK’s Head of Health and Wellbeing, said: “It’s vital that we create zero-cost opportunities for children to be more active, to be outdoors and to have fun together. Not only that, there is immense power in providing people of all ages with the chance to volunteer, to socialise and to feel part of their local community.
“With 405 events across the UK and 22,000 children taking part every Sunday, junior parkrun is already changing lives. However, we are only just scratching the surface in terms of what we can achieve. We are absolutely thrilled to enter this development partnership with the London Marathon Group over the next three years to grow junior parkrun and maximise the incredible and wide-ranging impact it can have on hundreds of thousands of children, families and whole communities.”