The current state of sports and physed in Ottawa

The current state of sports and physed in Ottawa

I am wearing many hats as I write this blog post. In no particular order here they are: teacher, community soccer and hockey coach, father of a very young girl, ex marathoner, ex competitive hockey and soccer player, personal trainer, children's fitness coach and citizen. These many different hats allow me to have a more objective point of view about the current health situation in schools.

I think for the most part schools are doing a good job at getting our students active. However, there a few things that need to be fixed (this isn't a rant; I'll be offering solutions as well).

The Ottawa sporting world is a bit upside down...
Our community sports and school sports need to learn from one another because right now we have school sports that exclude the majority of students and we have community sports that have multi-tiered levels (ie. AA, A, Rep and House League A, B and C). At the elementary level, school teams are trying to win the school board banner where as some community sports have taken away the winning or losing situation.

Schools should focus on ALL students. Here's a great example from a colleague of mine. Gordon from Russell High School believes that all of his students deserves a chance to be part of a team. He makes room for all who decide to tryout.

 At the elementary level, more emphasis needs to be put in intra-murals or festivals as oppose to sports teams. I created the intra-murals program at my school so that all students get a chance to play sports. Our first year, we had over 100+ students who wanted to play volley-ball. You can read more about our intra-murals program here. Last year, I took it even further to include all students. When our athletics team participated in the track and field competition, my class organized a track and field competition for all of the other students. JK & K ran 100 m. Grades 1 & 2 ran 200 m. Grades 3 & 4 ran 400 m. Grades 5 & 6 ran 800 m. All of the children received a True Sport ribbon. The following day, I overheard a child talk about his ribbon that he won. He was beyond happy.

I like the community sport approach where they make room for all children who wish to play (div. 1, div 2, house league). Schools should adopt such a system. However, I am not sold on the idea that soccer leagues have taken away standings. I do applaud them for taking away promotions and relegations. That was such a silly concept and adults strategized in the making of teams to win promotion and to avoid being relegated.

Developing physically literate children...
I participated in a Twitter chat not too long ago and teachers were commenting on what they thought the definition was. There wasn't a whole lot of agreeing going on. Well, there's no debating because a consensus exists since June 2015.

Physical literacy is the motivation, confidence, physicalcompetence, knowledge and understanding to value andtake responsibility for engagement in physical activities for life.

A few months ago, I wrote a post for Human 2.0 on how it takes a community to develop physical literate citizens. It's time that the sporting community and teachers get together to talk and swap best practices. I've been on both sides and each side thinks it's more important than the other. We'll need to collaborate to improve the health of our children.

It's also time that coaches and teachers embark on their physical literacy journey. When I coached at the highest level possible of my age category, I was trained. We had lectures and we practiced. That was amazing because we learned so much more by doing. Unfortunately, teacher training is often based on evaluating physical literacy as oppose to improving your physical literacy. On a side note, you can check out my physical literacy journey by clicking here. Imagine if coaches and physed teachers got together, learned together and planned together. Our children would benefit from this.


That's it for now, I'll be writing down more of my thoughts later...( the importance of free play, are specialists really specialists, long term planning, when in doubt refer out and etc).