At St John’s we have lived the Olympic and Paralympic values since 2010! We have increased participation in sport through the purchase of a mini bus which has allowed us to take more teams to more events. We have introduced new sports like golf, fencing and boxercise this year and are looking to make a link with a young member of the Team GB Archery team who lives nearby. The introduction of new sports to school has served to inspire the children to get more active and look for activities to do outside school which has seen children take up a range of sports and activities from golf to ballroom dancing. Engaging the children in a wide range of sporting activities has been successful through our work with our local school sports partnership. Links with members of the Great Britain Hockey team via Social Media has seen messages of encouragement for a healthy lifestyle being received from Hollie Pearne Webb and others, like Paralympian Phil Hogg, supporting our drive to improve reading standards in school, with photos of themselves reading their favourite children’s books.
Our healthy lifestyle drive has seen links with the Gardening Club as they promote growing your own healthy foods in school to be used in the school kitchens and then there has been the daily mile. Run, walk, jog and even sprint! The children from each class have to complete their own daily mile on our school playground and field tracks. We will be having a community mile event during Olympic Week to celebrate what we have been building over the year. This will allow the parents to see the ability of their children to exercise and hopefully encourage walking to school more. This years Walking Buses have been led by three teachers and have shown increased participation. The children now speak confidently about the need to have exercise as part of a balanced lifestyle.