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While students are settling into the fifth week of remote learning, many may wonder what physical education and athletics look like away from campus.

As members of our school community face a wide variety of situations around the globe, WAB’s PHE teachers and coaches are finding creative solutions to keep students active and continue training.

“Setting aside time for physical activity is always important and even more so in this situation, as many students are indoors,” MYP Physical Health Education Teacher Brad Benson said. “We are creating new, unique units that work well for our students and may continue to be included in our physical education curriculum when WAB returns to campus in the future.”

Brad said his students are beginning work on a new unit focused on movement. Inspired by a famous Nike campaign (VPN on), students will be exploring human motion and creating their own videos. Outside of the curriculum and with a goal of promoting activity throughout the community, Brad helped secure a partnership with the workout application Sworkit, which offers fitness routines via video which our parents, students, and staff can do at home or anywhere in the world. 

For the Elementary School students, PHE Teacher Niall Watt has been working with colleagues, friends, and family to create his own fitness videos: The WABulous Week-long Workout Challenge.

“Physical activity builds immunity, grows brain cells, and boosts moods,” he said. “I was hoping that through them we could build our sense of the WAB community while we’re not on campus. The aim was to try and keep Elementary students -- and really the whole community -- active.”

In athletics, WAB’s Aquatic Director Donald Watson-Brown has taken a personal and interactive approach to coaching the team. What started out as a four-day online program has expanded into four weeks of drills and workouts led live on video conference.

Despite the cancelation of the season’s biggest meet for High School students, Don and his coaching staff are focused on the team’s long-term success and the valuable lessons each of the TigerSharks swimmers can take away from this experience.

“The swimmers have risen to and exceeded the challenges I've thrown them,”he said. “When a barrier presents itself, do all you can to find a way over, under, around, or through it! Hopefully our swim team will view this time as a way to become physically and mentally stronger by focusing on an activity set that we normally are not able to devote as much time to.”

Donald and the other teachers agree that despite the successes the students and athletes have experienced while away, there is no replacement for being back on campus learning and working together.

“It’s one thing to talk about, write about, or dream about life’s challenges and the need to be flexible, resilient, adaptable, and tolerant. But living it and responding with positive action and enthusiasm, that’s next-level stuff! The whole school community has been an inspiration in a time of displacement, stress, and anxiety.”