Since the start of Term 2, our Year 9 Sports Leaders have been focusing on lifesaving, working towards achieving their Bronze Medallion Lifesaving Award. In this week’s Secondary Blog, Alice Curwood (Head of Curriculum PE) and Mark Atkinson (PE Teacher and Lead teacher of the Sports Leaders Elective) share their insights into this valuable student learning pathway.
The Bronze Medallion Lifesaving Award course is composed of three phases which impart to candidates the fundamentals of water safety theory, as well as the practical aspects of land-based and water-based non-contact rescue and resuscitation skills.
Students are assessed in a variety of ways: a timed 300 metre swim which has to be completed within 9 minutes; a 100 metre aided tow, which has to be completed within 3 minutes for boys and 3.15 minutes for girls; and a gruelling deep-water search and rescue. Students worked hard throughout the term to practise these set requirements, demonstrating their resilience in the progress they made when overcoming challenges to meet the set times. Our students also displayed kindness when supporting one another throughout the course and during the final assessment.
On Friday 1st April, assessor Darius Keow from Lifesaving Saving Society Malaysia (LSSM), spent the morning at KLASS with our 21 students who selected this Year 9 elective pathway. It fills us with pride that all 21 students successfully completed their assessment and were awarded the Bronze Medallion. The connectedness of the group was evident on this date, with students working together independently completing each component of the course. This is something we have been proud of as a department across the year long elective course, where we have seen endless examples of our school values by this group of students.
In Term 1 these students completed a Sport Education unit which began during distance learning. They virtually coached their peers prior to planning and delivering a highly successful T-Ball tournament in Year 8 PE lessons when we returned to campus. These students have now begun a coaching unit for Term 3, which will culminate in them delivering sessions to our primary students at the JB campus. They continue to amaze us with their integrity, respect and commitment to the course. We hope the skills they have accumulated will be transferable to other areas of school life and beyond, helping them face further challenges and push themselves out of their comfort zone as they begin their GCSE studies next year.
Congratulations to our students and heartfelt thanks to Ms Curwood and Mr Atkinson for supporting students through the Year 9 Sports Leaders Elective.
Wishing you a wonderful weekend,
Dr Maria Osowiecki
Secondary Principal