Health & Fitness

HEALTH AND FITNESS

It is fantastic to be back at school and even more so to see our students active and engaged in a number of programs that are on offer this term.  Way back at the start of the year, the school applied for, and was granted about four and a half thousand dollars to provide coaching for students in a variety of sports. These included basketball, Tae-Kwando and soccer coaching.  Unfortunately, this year’s lock-downs cut short those activities. 

At the end of Term 3, we once again applied for additional funding, and once again received a similar amount of money to provide coaching programs for this term.  This funding is made available to us through the Sporting Schools Program, a $320 million Australian Government initiative designed to help schools increase children's participation in sport and connect them with Community Sporting Opportunities.

Sporting Schools programs are provided free to children and their families to help students build the confidence and capability to be active for life.

To help achieve this, Sport Australia has partnered with more than 35 national sporting organisations (NSOs). There is a program for primary schools, and a targeted program for Year 7 and 8 students in secondary schools.

This term all of our Year 7-10 students are receiving coaching in Football (soccer) which is being provided by Football Australia.  Our coach is Viorel Miter who is a senior coach with the Melbourne City Football Club. If your son or daughter is interested in pursuing further involvement in Football (Soccer), the following Clubs are close to our school and have both teams and training for boys and girls; Westvale Soccer Club; North Sunshine Eagles Soccer Club and the Albion Rovers Soccer Club.

Students in Years 3-6 are being introduced to the sport of Taekwondo, which is proving to be extremely popular for our students.  Coaching is provided by William and Arkie, both supplied by Halls Taekwondo and coordinated by Taekwondo Australia.  William and Arkie are both fantastic with our students and I have received some very favourable feedback from our teaching and ES staff.

Finally, the school has provided funding for the services of a personal trainer who attends Jackson for an hour on Mondays and Fridays, and conducts 4 half-hour sessions for students from Year 7-10. This program arose following our very popular fitness training sessions.  We had a great deal of interest from students wishing to take part in this program when it was held at the Sunshine Hospital earlier in the year. We now have enough students to provide separate coaching sessions for male and female students.  Students are being introduced to Boxing for Fitness, gentle weight training and general fitness programs.