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Working closely with PE practitioners and teachers across a range of schools, the Action Mats range has developed over the years to help pupils enjoy sport and exercise, learn though problem-solving challenges and educational games, as well as support their emotional wellbeing.

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We developed Action Mats in response to PE practitioners looking for a combination of exercise and play. We came up with the idea that ‘Action Mat’, our stick-man character, would show children of any age and language ability how to do exercises on a bright and attractive activity zone – a defined space that attracts children to use it.

We set out to find a lightweight and durable mat that would be non-slip and non-trip, and enable bright and cheerful designs to be printed on it.

Once we found the material, we developed the Action Packed range and, with help from PE teachers, fine-tuned the exercises and challenges to address children’s capability and attention span, as well as created a range of lesson plans to accompany the mats.

Since then, we have released even more lesson plans via our app and launched two more ranges, Mini Mats and Mindful Mats. Mini Mats were devised in response to requests from schools to provide a similar resource for Early Years. They focus on movement and development for Early Years children, encouraging them to work on fine and gross motor skills as well as a range of cerebral challenges, such as shape recognition and colour recognition, whilst carrying out a physical challenge. 
Mindful Mats were then designed to help children understand and manage their own behaviour and reactions, helping them to regulate emotions to refocus, redirect and recover.

Mindful Mats were then designed to help children understand and manage their own behaviour and reactions, helping them to regulate emotions to refocus, redirect and recover.

Jonathan Bhowmick

Creator and founder of Action Mats

Action Mats was born out of an idea to convert an unused piece of a school’s grounds into an inviting, fun and safe place for children to exercise on. I had been working with schools for over 10 years, designing playgrounds and outdoor learning environments, when I was asked to solve this problem. After lengthy discussions, I created a concept to make each exercise appealing, easily understandable and without the use of descriptive words. Being an experienced Cub Scout leader, I understood the pressures of keeping a large group of kids gainfully occupied for several hours a week. The fundamental purpose of the Cubs Scouts is to provide children with; positive experiences, learning opportunities, encouragement to work together and the ability to gain life skills. If I could combine the mixture of those Cub Scout attributes, with physical exercise, then Action Mats would be a uniquely wholesome and positive resource. The mats, starting as a concept for simple exercise, had developed into a highly visual learning tool for all young people that can be used across all types of lessons.

Elita Bhowmick

Assistant ‘Mat-Matician’ for Action Mat

I studied Working with Children, Young People and Families at university and worked in many different settings with all ages of primary school children since completing my degree, so understand how time-consuming and stressful planning lessons and activities for the children can be! We wanted to create something that everyone would love while still helping with the children’s development.