By Melissa Mancini
Schools are finding different ways to keep kids active despite busy curricula as part of a Ministry of Education initiative mandated last year.
The province requires every Ontario student in grades 1 to 8 to participate in at least 20 minutes of daily physical activity. Two local schools, Glashan Senior Public School and St. Anthony Elementary School, have taken different approaches to fulfilling the requirement.
“We thought if we are going to do this, then we are going to do it right,” says Susan Nouvet, principal at Glashan, which is a Grade 7 and 8 school.
Before the ministry mandate, students at Glashan had physical education class four out of every six school days.
The ministry sent out kits with ideas for physical activities in the classroom, outdoors and in the gym.
Nouvet says Glashan decided to go in a different direction.
“We chose not to use the classroom environment because it is restrictive,” she says.
Nouvet says many of the activities work for younger grades, but older children may not be able to do the activities in a small classroom setting.
On days when students at Glashan don’t have gym class scheduled they report to the gym instead of their homeroom. A teacher then leads them through different activities, that could include anything from skipping to ping-pong.
At St. Anthony, a school with students in kindergarten to Grade 6, play is less structured and takes advantage of community resources to comply with the ministry.
“We have created a number of partnerships to expand physical education,” says Theresa Swanson, St. Anthony’s principal.
A coach from St. Anthony Italia Soccer club comes in to teach soccer skills to students on Thursdays. Older students take part in swimming lessons at the nearby Plant Bath facility.
Funding from the Catholic Education Fund in 2006 allowed St. Anthony to bring in YMCA recreation leaders to lead classes in yoga, hip-hop dancing and cardio kickboxing.
Bob Thomas, a physical education consultant for the Ottawa-Carleton Catholic School Board, used ministry funding for the program to pay for print materials and equipment for each school.
One of the resources for teachers is a binder the ministry produced.
“The binder was created for teachers by teachers,” says Thomas.
Activities in the binder have requirements for safety considerations, necessary equipment and the appropriate grade level outlined on each sheet.
Activity sheets also outline instructions for the right way to warm up and cool down.
“The ministry has done a good job of providing teachers with limited experience [teaching physical education] good resources,” says Meg Myers, a Grade 1 teacher at St. Anthony.
Myers says there are some challenges when leading the activities, such as getting students to calm down after the activity. She combats this problem by splitting the 20 minutes into two blocks and having one before recess and one before schools ends for the day.
Myers says it can sometimes be hard to fit the extra activity in.
“It can be a challenge to find 20 minutes in a day that is packed already.”
But she says because ministry activities often have an academic component, it helps to tie the time into existing lessons.
At Glashan, Nouvet says reaction from teachers to fitting in physical activity has generally been positive.
“There are issues around instructional time being eroded, but daily physical activity isn’t the only initiative that is taking extra time.”
Swanson says the area the school is in creates barriers for students getting physical activity outside of school time, which is why it is so important to have it in schools.
“Many of our students live in apartments which means they can’t just go outside and play in the backyard, they need to be accompanied by an adult to go outside and that may not always be available,” she says. “They don’t have as many opportunities for physical activities as kids in the suburbs do.”
Reaction from students has been positive according to both principals.
Young students seem to understand why being physically active is important.
“Exercise is good for your bones and muscles,” says Taylor, a
Grade 1 student at St. Anthony.
Classmate Elijah agrees.
“We do it because it is good to exercise your body.”