Primary Sport

Play Move Improve 

On Monday 25th March 7:00 - 8:30pm, all Primary & Kinder parents are welcome to join us at a ‘Child Development Parent Workshop’. At the beginning of the school year, all of the Primary teachers and Support Staff, attended a ‘Play Move Improve’ Professional Development by Robyn Papworth, Masters Qualified Developmental Educator. 

The staff were so inspired by Robyn’s message in how movement and play can help our students to self-regulate, focus and learn beyond the Early Years, that we wanted to share this with our parents. Her passion is to equip families with tools and understanding through innovative play and movement-based learning strategies. 

Our Prep students have also begun a new program that she has designed called Movement Intervention Program (MIP). The students are currently working through evidence-based activities which focus on infantile reflexes, all the way up to more complex skills. 

This program was designed when Robyn found more and more children were starting school and still retaining rather than integrating their infantile reflexes. Retaining these common infantile reflexes can have an impact on a child’s motor development, ability to play, to learn and self-regulate. 

It has so far been a very fun and active session each week and I look forward to watching the students grow. The program has also been a wonderful time for our year 6 students to show leadership, as they run the activities the prep students rotate through. 

Early Years Walk-A-Thon 

On Monday 4th March all students in years Prep, 1 & 2 had a lot of fun being active by taking part in the Early Years Walk-a-Thon! The students walked or ran laps of the top oval to earn their House points. The House points will go towards the Early Years Sport Cup, which is to be presented at the end of the year.  The year 6 students also participated in the Walk-a-Thon by walking with their Prep buddies and encouraging all students.

Early Years Gymnastics Program

All students in Years Prep, 1 & 2 have just begun their Gymnastics program at Jets Gymnastics in Diamond Creek. This is an exciting and new developmental opportunity for the students. The students will complete 4 lessons during Weeks 6, 7, 8, & 9 of Term 1 on Tuesday.

Gymnastics is a wonderful sport that helps children develop their strength and flexibility. It allows children to grow in self-confidence, healthy risk-taking behaviour and fundamental motor skills. These lessons will be run by qualified Gymnastics Instructors from Jets Gymnastics. 

Sally Donaldson

Primary PE Teacher

Hot Shots Lunchtime Tournament

For the first few weeks of this term, Year 5 and 6 students have had the opportunity to participate in a lunchtime Hot Shots tennis tournament. This tournament was overseen by Mr Freeman, a PE teacher new to our College this year.

Hot Shots tennis is a modified tennis game, using less tensioned racquets and larger, softer tennis balls, and is a highly popular sports option. Last year I regularly set up the Hot Shots courts during the week, so students had it as a playtime activity to choose from. We’ve done the same again this year and there are regularly 25-30 students, from years 3-6, hitting on the courts. Hot Shots is also available for inter-school sport selection, and for this summer season, we have 37 students involved in inter-school sport Hot Shots.

The Hot Shots tennis tournament proved to be popular, especially amongst our boy students. 24 boys signed up and after various stages of round-robin matches, the grand final match was between Aarav V and Ethan B, both year 6 students. The match was high quality, with both boys being interested, and skilled, tennis players and ultimately, Aarav V gained victory after winning the tie-break.

Four girls signed up for the tournament and also played through a modified round-robin format. The grand final was between Poppy S and Gemma A, both from year 5, with Poppy being the winner.

Each winner, and runner-up, earned a small prize, of sporting equipment, to acknowledge their efforts.

At another time this year we will host a doubles Hot Shots tennis tournament.

Year 3/4 Ga Ga Tournament

You could be excused for wondering if we, in the junior Primary area, have all gone a little ga-ga!

No, we haven’t gone ga-ga however, the students do love playing Ga-Ga. 

What is Ga-Ga Ball? It is a fast-paced, high-energy game played in an octagonal pit. Ga-Ga is very popular at school camp venues and last year, the Junior Primary area at PVCC was fortunate enough to have two ga-Ga pits built by our wonderful maintenance crew. There are intense games of Ga-Ga played every playtime by students of mixed aged and mixed gender – it is a delight to behold. I encourage you to ask your child about the rules – be prepared for a lengthy description!

This week we had an inaugural Year 3/4 Ga-Ga tournament. 65 students signed up to play and on Tuesday we held qualification games with the students divided across five separate games. The top three students, from each game, qualified for the final which was held on Thursday. Congratulations to Alice C, Lola K, Mason M, Kiara C, Ella W, Georgia D, Ovith W, Elijah S, Mathew S, Eddie F, Lucas M, Levi L, Tom H, Seb H and Malachi R for qualifying as finalists.

The final was a magnificent spectacle. Each player played by the rules and battled hard. NOTE: in our version, if you get out, you can still battle from the sidelines to earn your way back into the octagon pit. Ultimately though, the players dwindled one by one, and the winning player was Kiara C. Malachi R was the runner-up.

Well done to all participants – we’ll have another tournament next term.

Guy Gurney

Primary PE Specialist