Students and staff Northern Education Trust Dyke House Academy have embraced a national campaign to celebrate the importance of physical education and school sport in enhancing young people’s wellbeing. The Academy has encouraged participation in the Youth Sport Trust’s annual National School Sport Week supercharged this year by Sky Sports.
The UK-wide initiative presents a series of virtual sporting challenges for families, friends and neighbours and aims to connect people during the unprecedented period of partial school closures and social distancing.
Dyke House’s Head of PE Leanne Smith said: “The National School Sport Week takes place in the last week of June every year. It is always a fun-packed week of sport with lots of different sporting activities and competitions to get involved with, in school and across the town. This year we still wanted to play our part in supporting this campaign, even in these very different circumstances. We set a number of different challenges for our young people to participate in.”
Year 9 student Max Penfold took part in a few different challenges and was the first to engage earlier in the week. He participated in the ‘Spell Your Name Work Out’ when each letter represented an exercise – Max completed a two-minute plank, ten push-ups and ten lunges. He said: “I think the sports challenges are great. They are accessible for all students especially when there has been no PE and sporting facilities have been closed or shut down. It’s a fitness activity we can do at home. Exercise can put you in a good mood for the rest of the day and I have wanted to get involved.”
European Tour golfer Graeme Storm, born and raised in Hartlepool, is an ambassador for the campaign as National School Sport Champion for Golf. He is Dyke House’s golf consultant too and has posted a series of National School Sport Week challenges he has set on social media.
Another Dyke House student – Nicole Fleetham – took on PE teacher Mr Joe Palmer’s challenge of recording the highest number of push-ups in 60 seconds. Nicole, who is in Year 9, reached 30. She said: “The challenges were fun to complete and I love a bit of competition so couldn’t wait to have a go and get involved.”
