Health & PE News

Year 9 Wheelchair Basketball

Year 9 students had the opportunity to experience wheelchair basketball during their PE classes. The students have been learning about modified sports, in particular sports that are modified to assist people with a disability. The enjoyment and fun the students had was very noticeable and the experience of trying to control the wheelchair and play a game of basketball was something out of their comfort zones.

The students were introduced to a presenter from Disability Sports Victoria named Peter. Peter has been in a wheelchair all his life from contracting Polio, which made him paralysed from the waist down. He was such an inspiration for the students to listen to as he shared his experience with living in a wheelchair and all the accomplishments he had achieved, such as winning a gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics for the powerlifting event and travelling the world playing wheelchair basketball in many different competitions. He also shared his struggles in life growing up in Nigeria in which he described people with a disability have basically no support at all. An example of this was a story he shared of having to crawl 3km to school each way as there was no funding for wheelchairs in Nigeria and his family could not afford to help support Peter with his disability.

Overall, the experience was very successful for the students, and they all wanted to have the opportunity again.

Adam Golding

Head of Health & PE

Athletics Victoria State Championship 

A number of GEC students proudly represented their athletics club and community at the 2022 Athletics Victoria State Championship conducted the weekends of Feb 19th and Feb 26th at Lakeside Stadium.

Many of them were medallists with a few state champions!

These students include:

Cooper Acklohm (men U15): javelin (1st), discus (1st), 200m hurdles (2nd), 100m  hurdle (5th), 100m (6th)

Laura Wong (women U14) : 80m hurdles (1st), 200m hurdles (1st), 100m (2nd), 200m (2nd)

Jaikiah Honner (men U16): 400m (2nd), 200m (2nd), javelin (2nd), long jump (3rd), 100m (4th), shot put (5th)

Seif El-Shorbagy (men U17): Hammer (2nd), javelin (2nd), shot put (4th)

Haddi El-Shorbagy (men U20): javelin (1st), shot put (2nd)

Chloe Kaufman (women U18): javelin (4th)

Kane Hijlkema (men U15): 3000m (6th), 800m (10th)

I really wanted to congratulate these students for their great effort and dedication at training resulting in amazing results.

Thank you.

Gwladys Wong

GEC Parent