Moving, it matters
YEOVILLE - Life Healthcare Group partnered with Move-It, Moving it Matters, which is a South African initiative, aligned with the World Sport Alliance and committed to delivering quality, physical education, worldwide, as part of its Corporate Social Investment (CSI) framework, paid a visit to Yeoville Community School.
An event to showcase the commitment and pupils’ progress was held on 1 December. A fun mini-Olympics was held at the school with pupils dressed in either a blue or yellow t-shirt to differentiate between the grades and teams. Joy was written all over the pupils’ faces with energy bursting on the courts wHere they participated in the activities.
Speaking at the event, Life Healthcare executive, Yvonne Motsisi said, “This programme drew our attention because of its health-protection focus, particularly as it relates to bone health, cardiovascular demand and its focus on the development of good motor skills.”
Founder of the Move-it, Moving Matters programme, Dr Claire Nicholson remarked that, regrettably, children are not nearly as active as they should be. “Healthy physical activity during the early school years should be a critically important feature of the curriculum as it is well-known that during the pubescent and adolescent growth and development periods are peaking.”
Yeoville Community School principal, Martha Mente said, “This programme helps our pupils in many educational areas. They learn useful skills like hand and eye co-ordination which impacts their overall academic development. Thanks to this programme, we are also able to identify children who require more attention in terms of physical and skills development.”
In South Africa, every school going child should access at least 90 minutes of physical activity per week, within the prescribed school curriculum. Dr Nicholson, added that since physical education was removed from the school curriculum in 1999, a significant challenge faces society as there is a need to ensure that learners are sufficiently active.
