Sport Report
International Sports Training Camp
During the mid-year break, I was fortunate enough to spend some time at the International Sports Training Camp, based in the Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania, USA. This is a typical American summer camp that children attend during their main summer break, and one that I worked at for three summers back in 2001 – 2003 whilst studying in the UK. The main focus of the camp is to teach children character and life values through the medium of sport, as well as ensuring they have fun! Spending time at the camp, some 13 years later, allowed me to view the camp with more mature and analytical eyes to see if there was anything I can bring back to Kilvington and my own teaching practice.
One of the main features I noticed instantly was the positive environment that I was in, for both children and staff. Positive reinforcement and praise is constantly used with the children, with negative behaviour being stopped instantly by the staff. Children are clearly informed of the expectations and attitudes of how to treat and respect each other at the start of the week, and are constantly reminded of this throughout their time at camp.
The high amount of resilience demonstrated by the children was also another area that I noticed. This is mainly due to the culture in America of children as young as 8 years old being away from home for up to 5 weeks. Parents assisted staff at the camp by working through any issues with homesickness to ensure the children remained at the camp and had a positive experience as much as possible. Although this system would not work in Australia, due to the collision of Christmas and the summer holidays, it has reinforced to me the need for camps so children get used to looking after themselves and learning the skills of independence.
Finally, I was extremely impressed with the ability of the staff of the camp to mix the teaching and development of skills with the opportunity for children to have fun and learn character traits throughout the week. This is often hard in the school environment, due to the extra requirements of curriculum, assessment, scope and sequences being met, etc. However, it was evident that both of these aspects can still be achieved with some careful planning and consideration of the activities.
Sportsmanship was a key term used a lot with children. Campers had to shake hands immediately at the conclusion of the game. This resulted in those initial frustrations and angers being moved aside in order for sportsmanship to occur.
The experience of visiting the sports camp was extremely worthwhile and one that enabled me to further develop my teaching practice at Kilvington and continue to develop and improve the PE and Health subject.
Steve Bustin, Academic Dean of PE and Health
Futsal Grand Final Winners
Congratulations to the Kilvington Under 12 Futsal team for winning the Grand Final of the GESAC Junior Futsal competition - their second Grand Final win this year! Many thanks to their coach Millie Hogg who is in Year 9 at Kilvington.
Annual Scorpion Soccer Tournament
The grand final of the annual Scorpion Soccer tournament was played between Alpha Geno of Year 12 and Charlie’s Angels of Year 10 and 11.
During last term, students played various games of the now famous Kilvington lunchtime competition of 5-a-side soccer, with 11 teams taking part.
The final was a very tense affair, with the skillfulness of Charlie’s Angels being on full show playing against the more physical players from Year 12.
Alpha Geno eventually won 2-0 and will have their team name engraved on the perpetual trophy. Congratulations to all players who took part!
Senior Soccer Team Celebrates Big Win
Congratulations to our senior soccer team which defeated Huntingtower 5 V 0 at the end of last term.
Have we ever heard the School song sung with such gusto?