Daily Phys Ed with Miss Atwal is an account of our pursuit to offer a fun, challenging and academic PE program to the students of Panorama Hills School in Calgary, Alberta.
Our primary focus in our teaching is to develop each student's Physical Literacy - their ability to move with confidence and competence in a variety of situations to increase their overall health and wellbeing.
This is a challenging post to write on our blog for a lot of reasons, and a very exciting one all at the same time!
I have accepted a position with Ever Active Schools. Ever Active Schools (EAS) facilitates the development of health and wellness in youth by promoting healthy and active schools - and I couldn't be more excited about this opportunity. My new position with EAS is as the Healthy Schools Communities Education Coordinator where I'll have an opportunity to work with many Alberta schools and health promoting organizations.
My last day at PHS will be this coming Wednesday. From there I'm heading to EAS's annual Shaping the Future Conference (where we'll be sharing our Don't Walk in the Hallway project!) and officially be joining the EAS team on Feb 2.
I feel very fortunate for all the time that I have spent at Panorama Hills School. The students, staff and community have always been very supportive and I am going to truly miss the relationships we've developed together over the years.
All my years at PHS have been very formative as an educator and even more so in the recent past as a Physical Education Specialist. I can honestly say this this has been one of my best years teaching at PHS and I owe that to my very supportive family, extremely talented teaching partner, Ms. Atwal, and all our students and staff. They listened to all my crazy ideas and were very supportive of many initiatives.
All the best for the rest of the school year and thank you for all your support over the years!
We were fortunate to have a reporter from Active for Life come to visit our school today. Active for Life is a tremendous resource that targets parents looking for physical activity ideas for children - though I can assure you it's a resource for everyone (teachers, recreation leaders and parents alike) looking to raise active and healthy children. Sure, it was cool to share this initiative with these folks, but what was more amazing was the engagement happening around us while we were walking through the hallways. We stopped to take a few photos and talk how this project came about and before us was a string of children hopping, jumping and skipping their way through the tiled patterns. This activity continued to happen throughout the morning and equally as much into the afternoon.
We even had a few positive comments today too - "We've been working with [student] all year to recognize patterns and this morning [student] identified an ABAB repeating pattern, an increasing pattern and hopped right through both!" - PHS Education Assistant.
Did we tell you part of our goal was to blend mathematics and wellness? We've changed the physical space and the immediate cultural changes that coincide have been remarkable.
Research aside, we are on to something special!
An update.
Tiles are installed. Thirty students are again wearing activity monitors to track their daily physical activity levels. There is a buzz in the air. And, the excitement continues to build. For those reading abut this project for the first time, HERE is some background.
Phase 2, or is it 3, of this project is under way. I write this lightheartedly because Don't Walk in the Hallway continues to evolve everyday. A year ago there was never much intent to 'research' the effects of these patterns on student physical activity levels (a massive learning opportunity of which I owe much gratitude to Dr. Dean Kriellaars for the guidance). Our goal then was to simply enrich the school hallways and promote active transport and the development of physical activity. Today preparation is underway to present where we are at with this project at Ever Active Schools' annual Shaping the Future conference in Kananaskis at the end of this month and eventually publish the findings - I couldn't be happier!
Next Steps
We have a few goals that we hope to accomplish this school year. The first is developing teacher capacity to utilize these patterns in 'their everyday' at school. At the moment this looks like teacher professional development in the areas of math integration, daily physical activity opportunities, small group activity breaks and indoor recess deployment strategies. Throughout each of these we feel it's important to touch on the fact that this small project fits many aspects of Alberta's Ministerial Order on Student Learning. Who knew that components of this project would be so far reaching and could have such positive effects on student learning. In one brief day with the patterns in place we see students already find ways to problem solve and think critically as they use the patterns. (I sense another blog post coming soon!).
Next, Next Steps
My family and I frequent a few recreation centres on occasion, taking advantage of open family swims. Have you ever noticed their floors? You will now! Many have similar size tiles spanning the floor space waiting to be replaced with physically-engaging patterns. What better place to encourage movement.
I feel this isn't just an opportunity for our school but for other schools too. As I write this post I just received notification that a fellow PhysEd colleague in Colorado is about to launch a version of the patterns herself.
I've mentioned before that Alberta Education is building 50 new schools and modernizing 70 existing facilities - I see more opportunity here too. A close friend of mine is designing the accessibility architecture of an existing school and feels there is an element here that their team of interior designers could be looking at. What does this project look like for students using mobility resources?
Needless to say, we feel this is just the beginning.
I have accepted a position with Ever Active Schools. Ever Active Schools (EAS) facilitates the development of health and wellness in youth by promoting healthy and active schools - and I couldn't be more excited about this opportunity. My new position with EAS is as the Healthy Schools Communities Education Coordinator where I'll have an opportunity to work with many Alberta schools and health promoting organizations.
