Stoked about Summer
For Stoke School students, summer is all about having fun. So when it came to taking up the Summer Challenge, the school’s 223 students did it with a game, a swim and a laugh.
Stoke School officially launched the Summer Challenge with Monday Funday – a day of activities organised by The Board of Students to celebrate all the good things about summer.
Stoke principal Peter Mitchener said the Funday, like the Challenges, was about giving students and their family’s healthy, fun ideas.
“We wanted to have a day of fun but also make kids aware of fun, physical things they can do rather than hanging around inside at home,” he said.
“The Funday will see the students engage in physical activity, team work and having fun with friends, but also just help them get into summer.
“Summer is about activity, enjoying the outdoors and being active and healthy.”
The Summer Challenge is the latest instalment of a public education campaign designed by the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board’s Nutrition and Physical Activity Programme (NPA).
It follows on from the orange Winter Challenge and the green Spring Challenge and will provide a yellow drawstring backpack, a tennis ball and tomato seeds to 5,000 local families.
The eight challenges and resources are designed to help local families tap into what’s fun, fresh and great about summer on the top of the south – our beaches and rivers, barbecues, swimming, and of course backyard cricket.
NPA programme director Helen Steenbergen said the Summer Challenge would help families make the healthy option, the easy option.
“We know how hard it can be to get kids eating their veggies and getting enough exercise. We created the Summer Challenge to help,” she said.
“This could be real fun for your family and have real benefits.
“With these ideas, you’ll find that doing the right thing doesn’t take lots of time or money.”
Mr Mitchener said the Summer Challenge fits in well with school’s attitudes towards healthy living.
Stoke is already part of the Fruit in Schools and the Breakfast Club initiatives and will join the Edible Gardens programme from next year. It has also recruited world-class softball pitcher Marty Grant to build the school’s softball coaching capacity and to act as a positive Maori male role model.
“We’ve had huge focus this year on Turangawaewae, that is about our place and who we are and where we stand,” he said.
“We’ve been identifying who we are as people. One thing that’s come out is that we want to be full of activity and live healthy lives.
“We’ve got a huge number of students playing afterschool sports with Saturday morning T-ball and softball and kiwi cricket teams, Tuesday night soccer teams and Friday night Touch Rugby teams.”
Monday Funday will see students come dressed in yellow and rotate between nine different activities ranging from sand pit games, T-ball, swimming pool games, fitness games, Adventure Playground activities, non-stop cricket, orienteering, newspaper swords and some quiet time in the library.
