Students get into 20-minute daily workout

Grade 5 pupils at St. Anthony French Immersion school work out in the new fitness centre at the school. (SUE REEVE, The London Free Press)

By JENNIFER O'BRIEN
THE LONDON FREE PRESS

You can hear the laughter from down the hall. It kind of sounds like mayhem, or gym, in Dennis Gray's Grade 4-5 class.

But it's neither. It's physical activity time, and it's taking place in an unused classroom at St. Anthony French Immersion.

In the room, Antonia Mongragon-Forero, 10, does jumping jacks. On one side of her, Sarah Parsons, 10, sits on an exercise ball, and on the other, Renato Araujo, 10, hops over a hockey stick. Around them, children engage in at least a dozen other physical activities.

"Trois, deux, un . . . Changez!" shouts Gray, and his pupils rotate to the next station.

The classroom is one of six formerly empty classrooms that have been transformed into fitness centres at Catholic elementary schools in recent months.

All outfitted with exercise equipment from the Thompson Fitness Circuit Charts, the rooms offer schools an outlet to provide 20 minutes of daily physical activity, required under Ontario's Healthy Schools Act.

"It's about keeping kids moving, and elevating heart rates," said Sue McMahon, physical education and health curriculum resource teacher for the London District Catholic school board. "We need them to have a minimum of three phys-ed classes a week, then to meet the daily physical activity initiative, on the other two days they can use the room."

The activity circuits are set up to be inclusive to students of all ability, she said, noting a hand-bicycle is available for students in wheelchairs or with leg mobility issues.

In 2005, under its Healthy Schools Act, the Ontario government said every elementary pupil must engage in 20 minutes of physical activity a day.

McMahon said the Catholic board has long been following that mandate, and the fitness centres are a way to provide more options. With declining enrolment, many schools have classrooms that are temporarily not in use, she said.

Though some parents complain their children don't get 20 minutes of physical activity a day, spokespeople at both the separate board and the Thames Valley district school board said the Ontario mandate is followed.

Teachers have been creative in implementing the policy, with in-classroom programs such as "active" spelling and math, which can include dancing or moving around the room while doing other work.

The fitness centres at St. Anthony's, St. Jude London, Monsignor Morrison, St. Joseph's Tillsonburg, Monsignor O'Neil Tillsonburg and St. Roberts are equipped with about $600 worth of equipment that provides pupils with a circuit of activities.

Every elementary school in the board can receive the equipment, which can also be taken out for phys-ed classes, McMahon said.

Six other schools are waiting for equipment for fitness centres.

"This is more fun than doing math or verbs or something," said Austin Pagnot