Health and PE

If Learning in 2020 has taught us anything as a college community this year, it is that the students at Mooroolbark College are extremely resilient in adapting to new challenges and changes, as we begin Remote Learning for Term 3.  

With cameras given the go ahead, it has been fantastic to see students engaging and participating in a range of health and physical activity sessions from Yoga to Tabata with their peers in some of our online lessons. The feedback from students has been very positive, as they feel more connected with their peers and their teacher through the virtual classroom.  

Unfortunately, due to Covid-19, schools have been forced to postpone camps which can provide students with fun and exciting experiences which can stay with them for life, not to mention allowing them to make new friends and form meaningful connections with staff. Here at Mooroolbark College the HPE team decided that students should still get the opportunity to experience what it would be like to ‘virtually’ make it camp this year. So, we have created the ‘WHO CAN GET TO CAMP FIRST?’ challenge across all year levels 7-10. The challenge requires students to be work collectively and compete against their fellow classes to walk, ride or run to various locations around Australia including to Tasmania, Hahndorf in South Australia and Uluru in the Northern Territory. All these wonderful places represent just some of the amazing camps that are offered at Mooroolbark, we hope that we get to experience these places soon. May the best class win!  As an incentive, there are prizes and merits up for the taking. 

In addition, students will also be pursuing their own personal fitness goals and tracking their progress through a virtual diary, I am very excited to see how the students go at reaching their goals. Finding the motivation to complete their goals might be difficult especially in Winter, but I know the end results will be rewarding.  

With fitness challenges flooding our screens, we thought we would put our Year 9 students to the test with this Burpee Challenge. Below are the instructions of how to complete the challenge. If you’re game, give it a go and see how many Burpees you can get in 16 minutes. The highest we have recorded so far is 30! 

Stephanie Todd 

Head of Health and Physical Education