Health for life

Central to a child’s health, development and psychosocial wellbeing is the ongoing participation in physical activity.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) participation in sufficient levels of physical activity is important for cardiovascular, metabolic, and musculoskeletal health. It also plays a critical role in the prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Regular activity supports brain development, bone strength, and coordination, and helps to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

Launceston Grammar Director of Sport, Adrian Finch says that being active can also have a positive effect on sleep, mental health, concentration, and selfesteem and for 2021 the focus for the School’s Health and Physical Education (HPE) staff is to provide opportunities for students to take ownership of their fitness, general health, and wellbeing for long-term gain.

“When I reflect on my time as a student at Launceston Grammar, I have a great appreciation for the opportunities and experiences that the staff and coaches provided throughout my journey.” “I am very excited about where the Sport and HPE programmes are heading and the support and resources that the school is investing to provide the best opportunities for our students.

“I believe that the sport and co-curricular programme must offer a wide range of sports and activities for students of all levels of ability and interest to participate in and that’s why our Sports programme alone has over 25 sports to choose from throughout the year.”

“One of my goals for 2021 is for the Sports programme and the HPE curriculum to complement each other to achieve greater learning outcomes for our students and to enhance the performance of our senior sport teams.”

“This year we have introduced a fitness unit for all Grade 7-10 HPE classes

with a focus on cardiovascular fitness and movement patterns for resistance training,” says Adrian. “By introducing more opportunities for students to take ownership of their life-long fitness and giving them the skills to do it safely and effectively, we are not only meeting the expectations as set by the Australian Curriculum but transcending it.” For Adrian and his team, there is also a focus on ensuring students have the tools to take ownership of their fitness.

“The ability to use health and fitness facilities into the future is very important, so it is essential for us to teach correct technique to reduce the likelihood of injury and to maximise life-long health and fitness,” says Adrian.

“We have also included an aquatic unit for each Grade to provide more opportunities for students to refine swimming stroke technique, participate in aquatic games, aquatic fitness for cross training and recovery methods. We have an excellent aquatic facility with a 6-lane, 25-metre swimming pool which has been recently renovated.

“We have introduced a Strength and Conditioning programme which is available to all Senior Campus students in that they are able to undertake fitness circuits each lunch time with our Strength and Conditioning Coach, Theunis (TJ) Pieters in our Fitness and High-performance Centre.”

As part of his PhD, TJ is collecting training and competition information, testing fatigue levels, and monitoring the overall wellbeing of students.

“Information collected will help us better understand how much training and competition our students are doing and assist us to better manage their workloads to improve their overall physical performance, as well as to reduce fatigue, and improve general wellbeing,” says Adrian. 

 “Over 50 students at School are now wearing GPS movement tracking units while playing AFL, soccer, and hockey as part of TJ’s PhD research project.

“These units will allow us to measure and quantify exactly how much physical workloads our students experience during a normal training week, which assists us in prescribing more accurate and safer training programmes to enhance performance and reduce fatigue.

“We have also invested in TeamBuildr software which allows our Senior Campus students to receive an individualised training programme from TJ or one of the other HPE staff.

“It’s essentially a platform to be able to write training programmes and access athlete performance data.

“Students also record their daily physical activities and rate each activity’s intensity level, which allows us to calculate their internal workloads through their perceived exertional levels.

“The combination of using the GPS units to track movement demands and using TeamBuildr software to measure internal workloads will hopefully help TJ to determine optimal workloads that our students need to train at to maximise their performance.”

Even though Launceston Grammar is a smaller school, the success of its sporting journey can be accredited not only to its athletes but also the staff who work with them. When asked about the calibre of the coaching staff, Adrian says Launceston Grammar is dedicated to providing students with access to the highest quality coaching available in Tasmania.

“Including ex-AFL Richmond and Port Adelaide Footballer Jay Schulz as Head Football Coach for 2021,” says Adrian.

“It is great to have Jay coaching our students and playing with the Old Launcestonians Football Club this year and hopefully into the future.

“We have a young team of footballers this year with a lot of talent, so it will be great to have Jay work with this group to set them up to compete against some of the bigger schools in the SATIS (Sports Association of Tasmanian Independent Schools) competition over the next 2 to 3 years. “Jay is an exceptional addition to our top-level coaching staff which includes Jade Selby as head cricket coach, Mitch Billing for soccer, Barry Townsend for rowing and James Bolzonello and Matt Carswell for tennis.

“This coupled with the investment the School makes in providing outstanding sporting facilities, as well as attracting expert coaches like Jay ensures our students are provided with the very best opportunities.”

The School also offers an Athlete Pathways programme and an introduction to Athlete Development programmes for Grade 11 and 12 students who are wishing to participate at a higher level in their chosen sport.

“We are creating pathways for athletes who wish to pursue a career in sport, and it is important to have support systems in place to be able to deliver these programmes with qualified coaches and our dedicated Health and Physical Exercise staff,” says Adrian.

TJ and Adrian in the School’s Fitness and High-performance Centre

Providing students with the knowledge and tools to take ownership of their fitness.