Secondary Sport
Redlands Rhino – Weekly Fixtures
Please note: Redlands Rhino has the most up-to-date weekly fixtures. This is uploaded every Tuesday afternoon at 4.00pm. Please ensure you check this with regards to game times, venues and oppositions.
Head of Secondary Sport
Sport and Academics: Can’t have one without the other.
Sport and physical activity has a multitude of benefits and is vital to the holistic development of a child. More often than not these benefits concentrate on the more obvious physical and mental affects such as positive self-esteem, confidence and reducing the risk of lifestyle disease. Most people would agree that sport makes children ‘generally’ happier and healthier. However, we rarely discuss the positive influence sport has on an individual’s learning and cognition. With the current exam periods which have taken place, it is timely to reflect on the role physical exercise has on cognitive function and ability in young people.
“Physical activity has been shown to stimulate brain development correlating to improved academic performance” Maher, C.L (2016). It also alleviates the health risks associated with a sedentary lifestyle so that healthy, active children become better learners. The evidence has accumulated across several contexts and settings – including physical activity, sport programs and school-based curriculum.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in the USA published a report titled Active Education: Growing evidence on physical activity and academic performance. The report outlines the growing body of evidence indicating that physical activity and sports participation benefits both health and academic performance for children. The report examines how physical activity and sport may help school-aged children maximise their academic performance. It also provides an overview of the effects of physical activity on the developing brain.
A further study titled The associations between physical activity, sedentary behaviour and academic performance, investigated cross-sectional relationships between children’s measured physical activity, sedentary behaviour patterns, and academic performance using NAPLAN. Academic performance was correlated against an individual’s level of physical activity across a range of academic measures.
Writing and numeracy achievement were measured positively, significantly related to physical activity, as was the overall proficiency score. – what does this mean??
Children categorised as achieving high physical activity (ie. 45 minutes/day) scored, on average, ten points more than those having low physical activity (ie. 19 minutes/day or less). Impacts of physical activity, and in particular aerobic exercise on cerebral blood flow, and neuroplasticity and executive function, may underpin these associations. This was a landmark study done which identifies favourable relationships between total physical activity time and academic performance.
This was backed up by a recent peer reviewed article in the Journal of Frontiers Psychology (Madelesi, 2018) which showed that physical exercise can induce structural and functional changes in the brain, determining enormous benefit on both cognitive functioning and wellbeing of an individual.
This is important to consider when balancing academic time with physical exercise. Reducing one for another may have the opposite result we are aiming for.
References
ClearingHouse for Sport. (2018, May 2). Retrieved from Sport in Education: https://www.clearinghouseforsport.gov.au/knowledge_base/organised_sport/value_of_sport/school_sport
Madelesi, L. P. (2018). Effects of Physical Exercise on Cognitive Functioning and Wellbeing: Biological and Psychological Benefits. Frontiers Physchology, 509.
Maher, C. L. (2016). The associations between physical activity, sedentary behaviour and academic performance. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 1004-1009.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (2015). Active Education: Growing evidence on physical activtiy and academic performance. USA: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Basketball
Round 3 saw some great improvements across all ages for our Basketball teams. Congratulations to our 13A and 14A Boys who both had very convincing wins against Central Coast Grammar School. It has been great to see our Boys teams competing and having some close contests in Division 1 this year. A great round for our B Boys teams saw Redlands victorious in four out of the five games: 14B, 15B, 17B, Open B. Our 15C Boys had a very convincing win against SACS and our Open C Boys played Redlands 17D Boys in what was a closely contested game. Despite gaining a ten point lead early in the game, the 17Ds were unable to hold their lead and the Open Cs finished with a ten point lead.
With a clean sweep in the Junior Girls, we saw some great basketball and impressive wins. Both of our Inter Girls teams put up a tough fight, but unfortunately couldn’t get across the line. The Open B Girls had a great win against Chevalier and our 1sts Girls had a close loss against Oakhill.
Our ‘at home’ round in Dunnet Hall saw the 1sts Boys, 1sts Girls and 14A Boys playing in Dunnet Hall along with some of our Junior School teams. Thank you to the Friends of Basketball for running the barbeque on the day, it was a great day with a great atmosphere on our home court.
Just a reminder that we have boys’ basketball skills sessions in Lang Gym from 7am-8am on Monday mornings for any players registered for basketball. The girls only basketball sessions are held from 7am-8am in Lang Gym every Wednesday. All Basketball players wishing to improve their individual skill set are encouraged to attend.
If anyone has any photos from the Basketball season to date, please send them through to Kate Seebohm.
Sailing
Monday morning saw the arrival of six new Pacers to be used in conjunction with Redlands and RSYS. The two person three sail boats are a highly sought-after training boat for both kids and adults with the ability to have either a coach in the rib or in the boat to teach techniques and skills.
The boats will primarily be used for Teams Racing, a sailing format that put teams of three boats against each other over an S shaped course. This allows for fast paced, highly skilled and fun racing that can have results waiting until the very end of the race. The Pacer has been adopted as the boat of choice for all schools and with the purchase, enables Redlands to compete at the Interschool events including the NSW School Teams Racing Championship in April.
The RSYS coaching staff had a long day of unloading and putting them together ready for their first sail on Thursday 15 November with the Redlands school group.
Touch Football
Saturday saw all of Redlands Touch Football playing at Macquarie Uni for the first time, this was a great opportunity for our Junior teams to watch our Senior teams and visa versa. The Junior A team took on Blue Mountains Grammar A team, who had been very impressive in their early rounds. The girls worked hard to implement some three man drives to work inside the opposition half and then remain composed when attacking the try line. This was a tightly contested match, with some confusion around our first try being disallowed. BMGS capitalised on the confusion and scored quickly after, Redlands worked hard to get back into the game and scored just before the half time break to take the game in the break at one all. The 2nd half was a tussle, with both teams looking to attack from inside their own half, but our girls have been working well on their communication so were able to break down the attacking raids that BMGS threw at us. The game finished at 1-1, but after a discussion between the referees at the end of the match they concluded that the Redlands first try counted, so the Junior As won the match 2-1. Off the back of the Junior A win, our 1sts Girls were looking to get a solid hit out against Oxley 1sts. After a slow start, we were on the back foot early with Oxley scoring first. The girls were digging deep, and scored two quick tries, however a small defensive lapse saw Oxley score on the half time hooter and the game was locked at 2-2. The 1sts came out of the half-time break revitalised and revamped, looking to develop a structured game and put into practice what we have been working on to start the year. The half time break worked wonders with the girls scoring quickly to take the game to 3-2. As the game wore on, the girls broke down the Oxley defence and strong work in the middle meant Oxley found it difficult to work the ball out of their own half, and as a result of some quick turn overs, the girls were able to score again, and take the match 4-2.
A special mention must go to the girls in the Junior teams, who not only brought oranges for their team mates, but also provided oranges for their opposition to have at the end of their respective games. This is a great show of sportsmanship and a number of the other schools coaches and parents were very impressed.
Mr Tom Kindred
Head of Secondary School Sport
sports@redlands.nsw.edu.au
All Sports contacts can be found on Redlands Pulse.