Local schools receive national award for being active

Students at St. Theresa Catholic Secondary School play ball hockey as part of the intramural program set up by the school. Photo by Steph Crosier

By Steph Crosier

The national Quality Physical Education awards to 10 local schools, for keeping the community’s youth fit and active, were announced Tuesday.

The  awards were given to schools with exemplary physical education programs, teachers, and opportunities. The award is given to both secondary and elementary, religious, and public schools.

The recipients this year are: Centennial Secondary School, Moira Secondary School, Trenton High School, St. Theresa Catholic Secondary School, Tweed Hungerford Senior School, Hermon Public School, Prince Edward Collegiate Institute, Susanna Moodie, Centre Hasting Secondary School and Harry J. Clarke Public School.

To win the award, schools need to have at least 150 hours per week of physical activity for their students; must have an intramural program; educated professional instructor teaching phys-ed; and, it must have registered for the award.

Dr. David Chorney, chair of Physical and Health Education Canada, said the educated teachers must follow the provincial curriculum in innovative ways.

“A good teacher in phys-ed will allow students to produce their own knowledge not simple regurgitate and re-produce knowledge,” he said.

Chorney explained anyone who thinks athletics are less important than academics are kidding themselves.

“Physical education has ample data that supports students who are active, students who are fit, students who are healthy, because they are involved with physical activity have higher academic scores,” he said.

Jennifer Ronan, public health nurse for the Hastings and Prince Edward Counties Health Unit, is very proud of all the schools that won. One outstanding school was Hermon Public School in Bancroft. They won the diamond award.

Secondary schools can only win one award but elementary schools can win one of three, she said.

“For the diamond award,” said Ronan. “The school must provide minimum 150 minutes of physical education each week and its scheduled every day.”

For the other awards schools must provide 150 hours per week, but it is spread out to two or three times a week.

Kerry Donnell, communications officer for the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board, says it is very happy nine of its schools were recipients this year.

“We are thrilled,” said Donnell. “It really is a demonstration and a reward for their demonstration of and inclusion of physical activity as a regular part of their day at school.”

St. Theresa Catholic Secondary School was the only school from the Algonguin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board. It has won the award once before and is happy to receive it again this year.

“We think physical education is so important because it goes to developing the whole child,” said Stephen Tracze, vice-principal of the school. “At St. Theresa, we look at the body, the mind, and the soul. The body is obviously the athletic part, the mind is the academic part, and the soul is the catholic teachings we do. The balance is why we emphasize the athletics so much.”

Ronan is unsure why only one Catholic school was chosen.

“I’ve been to a lot of Catholic schools lately and they are doing fantastic stuff,” said Ronan. “It may come down to not feeling the need to apply for the award. It could be a school is doing great things around physical activity and they didn’t know about the award. We do send out information but schools get so much information every day it can be just almost impossible for them to keep up with everything that going on… when I go in to the schools, both public and Catholic, I see great things going on around physical activity.”

St. Theresa students were proud when they learned they won the award.

“We definitely deserve it!” said Courtney Gauthier. “We have intramurals every day, and there is always something going on.”