Physical Education

From Kale Vagnoni and  Mark Quinn, PE teachers

Go ahead and JUMP!

Molesworth St 

Our ingredient list has changed a little this past fortnight. We’ve still been able to apply our fast is slow, slow is fast concept, but we’ve mixed up the movement. Jumping and Landing have been our big focus. As kids (and occasionally adults) we all do it, but we’ve taken a deep look at the biomechanics of it all and figured out a few things: To start, we want to use our arms; a counterintuitive idea I know. But the arms give us the swing. The swing makes it easier for us to close and open the hips. A powerful* movement that gives us the opportunity to explode out of our jump, using our legs like springs to launch off the ground. And of course next up is the landing, without which we are falling. A good landing involves putting our body into a shape where our legs will absorb impact and we will remain balanced. That’s where the motorbike comes in. We land with wide, bent legs and arms out in front as if riding an imaginary motorbike. And that’s it! Some complex simplicity for a complicated, yet simple Fundamental Movement Pattern. So go ahead and JUMP!

*In fact, the most powerful! Vastly more powerful than biting.

Errol St

Sometimes it’s wet, sometimes it’s dry. Here in the PE dept we long ago learnt to pivot. The mixed bag of weather has brought with it a mixed bag of athletics disciplines for the Year 3-6’s. Any breaks in the rain have seen us out putting shots in Shot Put and hurling discuses in Discus. And when it comes tumbling down, which it has a lot over this wet fortnight, we’ve been testing our metal against a foam and elastic bar in High Jump. The form has been quite excellent, but will anyone top the long standing school record of 131cm? 

This year we will be including some of our core Health Curriculum concepts in the PE Dept Newsletter. The idea behind this is to give families a little more scope into the Health curriculum that is delivered in lessons throughout the year. These Health Hacks are designed to be a great talking point for discussions at home surrounding Health and Movement. 

Human Growth: This past fortnight we’ve been warming up our bodies and minds with a game we call Growth Tag. It’s offered us a great opportunity to talk about; what hormones are, what they do and when we have them. The answers being: Hormones are the bodies chemical messengers, they act like instruction manuals to tell your body when to grow and they are always in our bodies, but a complex thing called the endocrine system sometimes produces more to trigger rapid growth, like during childhood growth spurts and puberty.

Growth Tag has allowed us to explore some (but not all) of the bodies' different stages of development. In the game there are 4 key stages: Babies, Toddlers, Awkward Teenagers and Adults. Using an ‘Everybodies It’ game format you can either grow up or grow down between the stages. Ask your kid/s to play a few rounds with the family at home, or if you are pressed for time at least ask them to show you their Awkward Teenager run and be prepared to chuckle.