St Therese’s provides many sporting opportunities and they play a significant role within our school community.
The branches of sport include:
- School-based play, extra opportunities (walk safely to school)
- School sporting events such as cross-country, athletics and swimming carnivals
- Structured and skill-based PE lessons
- Representative sports
- Gala and participation events
- School community events such as fun runs and colour runs.
St Therese’s is involved with sport for several reasons. Sport promotes a healthy and active lifestyle and this in turn stimulates positive mental health and good concentration when students are inside the classroom.
Participation in sport encourages the development of social skills and teamwork. For some students talented in their field of sport it provides an opportunity to pursue their passion and to experience different levels of competition. Offering students a number of opportunities to be involved in sport has uncovered sporting talents of which the students were unaware, and also developed skills so that all students feel confident to be able to participate.
Students participating in a representative sport begin at school level and then progress to regional, diocesan, Polding and state. A number of sports allow for this progression including netball, soccer, rugby league, hockey, cricket, AFL, swimming and athletics, to mention some.
St Therese’s is committed to ensuring quality instruction is given to our students and at times external providers will be asked to come into the school to develop and teach a certain skill. At present we have a dedicated PE teacher who teaches all classes the skill sets in the NSW K–6 Syllabus.
The school community also shares the common understanding that a healthy body equals a healthy mind and often the school fundraisers will echo this belief. The P&F has organised fun runs, colour runs, obstacle courses and tabloids. These physical activities encourage participation and a sense of fun while being active. Each classroom also has a physical activity bag (PA bag) that teachers used for their daily energisers with the students. Keeping active and maintaining good health is a focus for the St Therese’s school community and all our pathways into sport allow us to do this.