Building Community – Lawn Bowls excursion

Our college has five values, and the college-wide focus value for semester two is “Building Community”. This value primarily encourages students to develop a sense of connection and engagement, as well as positive relationships and shared experiences, within the many communities they are a part of. Building community also allows us to focus on the positive impact we can have when we interact with newer communities.

This was evident few weeks ago, during Year 8/9 Sport, when Ms Handley (secondary English teacher), and I, accompanied thirty students to Diamond Creek Lawn Bowls Club for an introduction to the wonderful sport of lawn bowls. Lawn bowls is a game that appears simple yet has complexities; it suits all participants – competitive or strategic alike and all of the students engaged very positively with the game. We were warmly supported by six club members who volunteered their time to show our students the basics of lawn bowls, and I thank the club for welcoming, and supporting, us.

I encourage families to make use of local lawn bowls clubs, and their Barefoot Bowls events, during spring and summer; there are many important social sporting skills to be gained by playing this sport.

Health and PE Day

Wednesday 6 September was National Health and Physical Education Day (HPE Day), an annual day advocating the importance of Health and PE in the national curriculum, and its influence on the learning and development of children.

Mrs Sally Donaldson (Early Years PE), and I, love our jobs as PE teachers and Sport coordinators; we feel blessed to be a positive voice for healthy living, and healthy life principles, as well as encouraging students with relevant skills that they can utilise in social sporting situations.

On HPE Day, Sally and I were able to take our primary school, and house, captains on an excursion to headquarters of ACHPER (Australian Council for Health, Physical education, and Recreation ACHPER Victoria - Home), at La Trobe University, for a morning of engaging physical activities. Our students moved through four fun rotations – indoor football, AFL, touch rugby, and pickleball (a modified racquet sport). We had lunch at Bundoora Park and enjoyed picnic games of Finska and frisbee.

Here is what our primary vice-captain Holly W, had to say about the outing:

“On Wednesday the 6 of September all the school and house captains went on an excursion to Latrobe University for HPE Day. We did activities such as rugby, soccer, AFL, and a new sport called pickle ball. We all really enjoyed it and had a great time playing sport. After that, we went to a park and had our lunch. We played around on the playground and joined in on Finska and frisbee. When we returned to the college, the school captains helped Mrs Donaldson run an exciting sport activity for all three prep classes. The preps really enjoyed playing around with all the equipment”.

Division Athletics

Last Thursday, 7 September, six primary students attended Division Athletics at Meadow Glen athletics track. Just like our District Athletics Carnival, a couple of weeks beforehand, the weather for this carnival was wonderful, and conducive to excellent displays of athletics capability.

Our sporting district is part of the Nillumbik division and there are 38 schools within our division. So, our students had a lot of competition against students from a wide variety of schools.

Each of our students performed strongly in their individual events. As you can imagine, the competition was high quality so regardless of their placing in their events, our students did very well. Consequently, the fact that two of our students came first in their respective events is exceptional given the talent that was on show throughout this carnival; at this type of carnival you really have to see the talent to believe the talent; it is quite remarkable how athletically capable some primary students are.

Therefore, a huge congratulations go to Abby A (6BM), who came 1st in the 11-year girls discus, and Jonny S (4K), who came first in both 9/10 years triple jump and 1500m. Both students have qualified to represent themselves, and our college, at the Regional athletics carnival in October.

Well done also to Jacob D (11 years boys discus), Hamish S (12/13 years boys long jump), Cooper E (12/13 years boys 100m) and Kiisi A (12/13 years girls 100m and discus) for their wonderful efforts at the Division carnival too.

I continue to encourage all primary students to take an interest in athletics: learning more about the different events, watching highlights of athletics to learn and be inspired, becoming familiar with past, and present, athletes and the achievements, and to practice for events that interest them.

Guy Gurney - Junior Primary PE & Sport Coordinator

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