Webinar #39 | Fotini Vasilopoulos - Freedom of Creativity

Fotini's research focuses on the impact of physical activity on cognition and social and emotional learning in primary school children, with a view to improve how physical education is taught in schools. This presentation looks in detail at the role of self-regulation.

She has spent years teaching yoga and dance in inner city London primary schools, as a way to improve outcomes for disadvantaged children. This experience brought her to a Master’s degree in the Faculty of Education at Cambridge University. Her work there highlighted how physical activity may help disadvantaged children's academic achievement by improving their self-regulation. The findings she will share in this seminar suggest that early and sustained physical activity is an important element in children’s development and schooling. 

Fotini is now carrying out an ESRC-funded doctoral research project investigating the qualitative aspects of physical activity and how they influence cognition and social and emotional learning. She is also a research advisor for Observatory for Sport in Scotland, and is about to return to Australia to live and bring her work here.