Mr Ryan Berg, Head of Sport at Kingswood College in Box Hill, describes two simple but significant changes the school has made to engage students in more physical activity, more often.
You have heard the news by now – physical activity is good for you! I could start this article the same way thousands of others have, mentioning the physical and mental benefits of being physically active, but I’d probably lose you. You’ve heard it. You get it.
What’s more interesting is how to make physical activity a consistent part of your life. Nod your head as you read this if you have promised yourself that you will start exercising in the not-too-distant-future, only for it to continue sliding down the to-do list. It’s OK – you’re in good company.
While most children have the benefit of some exposure to physical activity through their schooling, think about how much that actually is. How many minutes of PE classes or sport do they do at school? When you crunch the numbers, it might not be as significant as you expected, especially when we know that the other minutes spent at school, and potentially at home, are largely sedentary.
We often hear statements around how being active improves wellbeing, memory, lowers anxiety, and think, ‘surely they act as encouragement to involve oneself’. What I’ve found is that most teenagers are not inspired by the benefits of being active. They are, shockingly, not panicked about cardiovascular fitness and how exercise might help aid their social skills or cognitive processing. They don’t think about what exercise is doing for them long-term. It is the immediate effect and stimulation, the camaraderie and the excitement that most of them enjoy. You don’t hear it much because it is a simplistic way of viewing the benefits of being active, but if you asked a kid why they enjoyed a physical activity, their likely response would be: ‘because it was fun.’
We have a product – physical activity. Kids think it’s fun. We must sell it, and we certainly can’t simply create more opportunities for our students to ‘have more fun’. It needs to be dressed up in scientific evidence, with words about mental health and wellbeing. We need stories how, for example, psychiatrists first prescribe exercise to people who experience depression and severe anxiety because it does almost exactly what the drugs do. We need to sell it like we know more about this topic than the public. Right?
Wrong.
If the clients we are selling to (students) aren’t particularly interested in the side effects of our product, yet still largely enjoy our product, why would we focus on trying to figure out ways to sell it? The product sells itself to most kids. They don’t care that their heart is a muscle, and muscles get stronger the harder you work them. They don’t run around the court playing a game in a PE class telling their friend, ‘This is fun, but what I love even more is the fact that we will be able to retain the information in Math’s class after this so much easier!’ Nope, it’s just fun.
Sure, students should be aware of the benefits of moving their bodies. But instead of explaining it to them and hoping they implement it into their lives, imagine if we focused our energy on creating many opportunities for them to experience it? If our intention, as mentioned above, is to make physical activity a consistent part of their lives, then perhaps through this experience, they may just make these connections on a deeper, more personal level.
With this information in mind, what does a school who deeply cares about the mental and physical health of their students do?
At Kingswood College, we made two significant changes:
- We completely changed our uniform to an activewear wardrobe.
- We changed our timetable so that nearly every student in every year level participates in physical activity every weekday.
Remember watching seven-year-olds climbing equipment and swinging on monkey bars in a blazer, tie and black business shoes? They are distant memories for Kingswood College. Activewear attire allows the students to be active at any time throughout the school day. I cringe when I think about how many Year 8 students wanted to play sport at recess or lunch but were reluctant based on what they were wearing. It is a barrier to being physically active and I hope that one day every school will catch up. Our numerous sports fields and gym are open for business at recess and lunch, and we’ve seen the numbers of students getting active at these times skyrocket since activewear was introduced.
The second change we made was to our daily timetable. We ensured that students got the opportunity to be physically active every day. Daily Physical Activity (DPA) for all students has been a goal for a number of years at our school. It is a courageous move that required many minds to create. An integral aspect contributing to the success and enjoyment of DPA is that students get to choose their activity. These activities can change throughout the year for an individual, or they can remain the same thing for their entire school journey. The choices are varied, so it caters for those who wish to be very active, less so; team-focused or more individual-based. This allows students to consider their choices, rather than whether they should be doing physical activity. If you speak to a student in the Secondary School on any given day, it would be an anomaly if they hadn’t either had a Physical Education class, a sport training, a sport match, or a session of DPA. Mental wellbeing, better engagement in learning, social skills and the rest.
Kingswood is a member school of the Eastern Independent Schools Melbourne (EISM), which fixtures all Interschool Sport during weekday school hours. The fact that it is not on weekends is beneficial to all students, as it provides them the opportunity to pursue other interests at that time. For students involved in community sporting clubs, they need not worry about school sport clashing with their club sport. It allows students to participate in sports that are not offered within the EISM. Many of the students this relates to are incredibly talented in these sports, and Kingswood wants to ensure young people have every opportunity to pursue any sport they wish.
We have a higher presence on social media, so that our community are aware of all the achievements of our students. Celebrating these achievements, whether they were for a Kingswood sports team, or not, is important to us.
I imagine you’re wanting evidence that we are getting better in the sporting world by now. Fair enough. I will do this by comparing performance in EISM sport in past years to recent years. In 2014 before all the above-mentioned initiatives were introduced, we won 37 per cent of our Interschool matches and made 4 Grand Final appearances in total. In 2023 we won 65 per cent of our Interschool matches and made 18 Grand Finals. Participation and investment in sport from our students has been key to this improvement, and we are proud of the culture we have built.
To recognise our students who excel in sports inside and outside our EISM competition, we have created an initiative called ‘Stars of the Stairway’. If you walk from one level of our Sports Centre to another, you will see a range of posters that showcase individuals, their sport, their achievements and ways that others can get involved in that sport. Currently, our stairway recognises students in lacrosse, golf, figure skating, swimming, hockey and water polo.
The initiative has not only provided awareness of these students, but it has highlighted just how many of our young people are achieving success both in our school sports, and at their club outside the College. There are plenty more high achieving athletes out there waiting for their time as a star on our stairway.
So, how are we supporting and assisting these stars? I’m sure it’s a mix of the things we have implemented. For some, it may be the DPA weights and fitness sessions. For others, it may be remaining in a school-hours Interschool sport competition. Others may be fresher for their club trainings due to having been active every day at school. Perhaps they are more active every day due to being dressed appropriately for activity.
Regardless of what it is, we’ve done something right.
After all, the kids aren’t overly worried about the ‘sales pitch’ when it comes to exercise.
They just want to have fun.
