Page 1262 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 3 April 2019
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Students in kindergarten to year 6 are provided with a minimum of 25 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day, as part of planned physical education and sport programs. Students from years 7 to 10 are provided with a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week as part of planned physical education and sport programs.
Because the government welcomes diversity in its schools, all schools must make reasonable adjustments to provide all students with the opportunity to access and participate in physical education. Already, principals ensure that physical education and sport events are supervised by an individual with appropriate qualifications and suitable experience to manage the activity. The opposition does not need to call for this to happen; it already does.
However, as I have stated previously in this place, my future of education implementation update describes how the government is aware of the need to look at the teaching workforce and devise a workforce action plan, at the industry and public school level, to make sure there are sufficient teachers available with the knowledge and skills required to meet the ACT’s needs. I am pleased to hear that Ms Lee has already begun adopting some of these proposals that I have raised around this issue, like sharing specialist teachers across ACT schools.
Ms Lee’s motion states that she has been told by teachers and parents that many schools are not following the government’s physical education policies. I encourage Ms Lee, if she believes or if she is being told that there are schools not following the policy, to bring those matters to my attention or to ask those people who she says are raising the issue with her to bring it to the Education Directorate’s attention so that the directorate can work with the school and support them effectively to deliver the high quality sport and PE programs that our community expects and that our children should receive.
There are also other programs run in schools alongside the Australian curriculum to keep kids active, safe and healthy, such as the aqua safe program. Aqua safe is delivered in partnership with Royal Life Saving ACT for year 2 students in public schools. The aqua safe program is not a learn-to-swim program; it is a holistic mix of water awareness, survival and rescue skills, and water safety knowledge that students are able to apply to a range of aquatic contexts.
Aqua safe focuses on helping children to make safe decisions around and in the water, including areas such as stormwater drains, dams, creeks and rivers, and is supplementary to the requirements of the Australian curriculum health and physical education learning area. Each year the government invests up to $400,000 in delivering this important program, and we intend to keep delivering it as it plays an important part in keeping kids healthy, active and safe. Some schools go even further and include learn-to-swim programs for their students in their school programming.
The Education Directorate maintains a close and productive working relationship with School Sport ACT, who work with schools across the public, Catholic and independent school sectors in providing pathways for elite level sport participation.
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