Brain Gym

Sense About Science has been receiving calls from parents and teachers who are concerned about the use of ‘Brain Gym’ - a programme of teacher-led physical exercises claimed to improve cognitive abilities - in primary schools.

These exercises are being taught with pseudoscientific explanations that undermine science teaching and mislead children about how their bodies work.

Working with neuroscientists and physiologists we have produced a series of responses to the claims made in the Brain Gym Teachers’ Edition. Read the briefing document.

The director of Sense About Science, in association with The Physiological Society and the British Neuroscience Association, has written to local authorities to ask them to make this material available to schools in their area.

If you have any questions about the science claims made by Brain Gym please contact us by
email or on 020 7478 4380.

Newsnight programme covered this story in a report by Pallab Ghosh. You can watch the report below.

Dr Beth Losiewicz, from the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, was interviewed for BBC 5 Live on Brain Gym. You can listen the clip here (mp3, 6MB).

Experts dismiss educational claims of Brain Gym programme

British schools are falling for the pseudoscience of Brain Gym

Brain Gym claims to be withdrawn

Brain Gym exercises do pupils no favours

Last updated: June 19 2008

Sense About Science is an independent charitable trust promoting good science and evidence in public debates. We do this by promoting respect for evidence and by urging scientists to engage actively with a wide range of groups, particularly when debates are controversial or difficult. We work with scientists to respond to inaccuracies in public claims about science, medicine, and technology; promote the benefits of scientific research to the public; help those who need expert help contact scientists about issues of importance; brief non-specialists on scientific developments and practices. Sense About Science is governed by a Board of Trustees and run by a small office staff. We are supported by an Advisory Council and some 1,000 scientists and other specialists, ranging from Nobel Laureates to postdoctoral fellows, who are signed up to our database, Evidence Base. We also work with younger scientists in our VoYS (Voice of Young Science) programme, which you can read more about here.