Lesley Riddoch: Schools need to act on exercise before the last gasp

Who would argue with Judy Murray? She's a dedicated mum and a talented, high-profile Scot. She's endured being described as the best and worst thing that's happened to her tennis star son Andy and his oft-overlooked sibling, Jamie.

She's a stayer and a trier. In a land of gallant losers, Judy Murray is a woman who wants Scots to win.

So she wants four hours physical education in all Scottish primary schools now. Who would say no - especially with urgent warnings about couch potato Scotland? Headlines last week told us ten year-olds are showing signs of heart failure. Waistlines of 11-year-old girls are three inches larger than in 1981. A fifth of primary one children are overweight, 85 per cent of teenagers don't take regular exercise and 66 per cent don't eat vegetables or fruit. Some of these statistics are improvements - that's how bad things have become.

Party leaders have not dared argue publicly with Scotland's fitness queen. But they haven't backed her call for a daily PE class in primary schools either. Why not? There've been policy U-turns aplenty in this election campaign conceding far more public cash to far less worthy public health goals. So why did both Alex Salmond and Iain Gray politely but decidedly turn down Judy Murray? Perhaps her powerful backhander on sports provision was slightly mistimed.

Her letter to The Scotsman last week was published the day before both parties unveiled their plans for tackling Scotland's dismal health record - too late for the SNP to adapt its community sports hub idea and its nakedly vote-grabbing national football academy proposal. Too late also for Labour to enlarge upon its free swimming pledge. Nonetheless, Judy Murray is demanding a primary school fitness revolution - and has already highlighted four contentious issues generally absent from the health debate.

The first problem is the effectiveness of targets. The SNP government's existing target of two hours PE has failed to reach 50 per cent of primary children. If that's true, why will tougher targets succeed? Something's already stopped half our primary schools providing the bare minimum of PE. It could be the competing claims of subjects deemed more important by teachers, government and parents. It could be shortage of gym space or qualified sports teachers. It could, put bluntly, be a general resistance towards exercise among teachers who are themselves inactive and unfit. It could be that school periods - especially in secondary - are 50 minutes long. So two periods just miss the arbitrarily-chosen two hour target.

Who knows? But the obstacles preventing the provision of two hours PE won't disappear by doubling the time targeted. On the other hand, what would have happened without targets? Scotland was bumping along quite happily with just 5 per cent of primary schools delivering two hours of PE in 2004. Would that lowly 5 per cent have become 55 per cent in five years without targets? Probably not.

But times have changed. Affluent 2004 is not austerity-struck 2011. If councils employ more qualified PE instructors, they will have cut back elsewhere. If sports centre opening hours are restricted to deliver the four hours primary school pledge, will that be acceptable? The second problem is the mixed message which lies behind those innocent letters PE. Is Judy's daily lesson intended to improve the sporting standards of the few or the physical activity levels of the many?

Scotland must urgently raise fitness levels among the children most likely to experience obesity, poor diet, inactivity, smoking and drinking. It should also develop each child capable of joining a sports club, team or even representing Scotland. These two goals, however, can be mutually exclusive. If each pupil simply walks or cycles to school, activity levels across Scotland will rise without an extra public penny being spent. But that alone won't produce another Andy Murray.

Equally, a game of tennis provides a great cardio-vascular workout - for the kids actually playing. If a school has access to just one or two courts that means a lot of hanging round, picking balls out of the net and general boredom for the rest. Ditto badminton, volleyball and other individual or small-team sports. Of course, where there's a will, there's a way. But if schools want to offer different sporting options at the same time they will need more staff, more playing fields, more decent changing facilities, more time and more volunteers.

This is the third problematic area highlighted by Judy Murray's proposal. Since Dunblane, security arrangements have turned some schools into fortresses and adults wanting to volunteer have been treated as guilty until proven innocent. Disclosure Scotland may now be processing applications faster, but stories of red tape, exclusion, suspicion and intrusion have combined to form a powerful urban myth. Parents - especially dads - feel they are not welcome around schoolchildren.

The next First Minister should tackle this in the same, unequivocal way David Cameron told councils not to use red tape to obstruct royal wedding street parties. Of course, some parents can be difficult, unskilled and unavailable - others are capable of helping children reach higher levels of fitness and sporting ability. But is that best done at school in school hours?

This is the final big problem with Ms Murray's suggestion. In the good/bad old days, many children hated being forced to fail at gym in front of their peers and promptly dumped all physical activity as soon as they could. The old style Hobson's Choice of hockey for girls and football for boys also turned more kids off sport forever than it ever turned on.

Nowadays, many secondary schools provide variety - dancing, shinty, golf, karate, and other "minority" sports are popular. But expert coaching is generally supplied by Sportscotland Schools Sports co-ordinators and the governing bodies of each sport. That's not possible for Scotland's primaries whose gym halls must also house school dinners, morning assembly, music practice, play groups and post-school activities.

More primary learning could take place outdoors - but while reading books or climbing trees in the local park is a great way to reconnect children with nature, it doesn't really constitute physical education.

Judy Murray has made an impossibly tough demand of our primary schools. And yet, she's right. If schools don't cultivate activity, who else will? And if targets don't work, what else does?