Under the wonderful leadership of North Vista Primary School’s Principal, Mrs Dhillon Singh, the school has embarked upon having ‘world first’ fitness and skill measures starting with all P3 students. Using Dr. Garry Tester’s ‘world first’ measures of physical health, developed at the University of Western Australia, the school has successfully partnered with Sports Challenge Australia to achieve some fantastic fitness and skill outcomes.
Garry and his qualified team of Sports Challenge Australia mentors; Jordan De Leo, Celina Hynes, Erin Arrow, and Director Jennifer Clay, assessed the students’ fitness and skill levels in a week-long program. Over two-hundred and forty children aged 8 years were tested and put through their paces, measuring fitness levels, fundamental movement skills, ball skills, and educational gymnastic skills.
As Head of Department (H.O.D.) of Physical Education (P.E.) Mr Alvin Lee explained:
“We want to have the best data available so we can use the data to focus our PE program to have the best outcomes for our students and identify students for our various C.C.A. Sports. Sports Challenge Australia with a database of 40,000 students from Australia and Singapore will give us meaningful data.”
Each student will receive their Parent Report showing their own scores the seven item fitness tests, and the ten item skill tests. Additionally they will receive their comparison scores of the school average for males and females along with a National average to aspire for and in many cases above the National average.
Wow and did the students have some fun with the Sports Challenge mentors collecting the data. As SCA mentor, Celina Hynes said:
“It is fantastic to see how well the students responded to physical activity; they tried hard, had a lot of fun, and were a delight to teach! You only need to look at their smiling faces.”
Now the journey for North Vista Primary School has begun, and the challenges will continue to build for fitness and skill levels of these students. Moreover, as the Students move through the primary years improved physical health can only be of benefit.