We use fitness gram at my high school. We use the pacer test, push-up test, cruncher test (not timed) and sit-n-reach. We record pre and post test and must submit it to the state as part of our teacher evaluation. I found that the students weren’t overwhelmed by the test and I saw a great deal of improvement throughout the first semester of the school year. In my experience if I mention the words mile run half the class had an instant asthma attack. I always add up how far they run during the pacer test and it usually is longer than a mile.

We just switched over to doing the Pacer test from the mile run as well and i feel that it has helped ease a lot of anxiety that my students were feeling when they knew the mile run was coming up. I teach elementary PE and we start the Fitnessgram test with our 5th grade students. What i like most about the Pacer test is that the strong runners in our classes are now the last ones to finish and enjoy having people watch them excel at what they do best, where as with the mile run our strongest kids finished first while the students who struggled always finished at the end and you could see how they hated finishing after everyone else. Definitely feel like the Pacer test has solved a lot of problems we had with students asking to go to the nurse or even not coming in on the day where they were supposed to run the mile.