For 2000 years schools have denigrated and neglected the body, treating it merely as a vehicle to get minds to lessons, the origin of unhelpful distractions and emotions, a source of second-class learning for the intellectually less able, and an occasional supplier of school prestige through sporting or artistic performance. The new science of embodiment, however, is showing just how wrong-headed – and indeed pernicious – this view has been, and how deeply schools need to change. The body is intimately involved in all forms of intelligence – including the intellect.