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Our changing world makes it even more important to ensure that our students have sufficient structured and unstructured opportunities for exercise. The school day at VIS provides a balanced approach to regular physical activity. One element of the balance is that VIS students of all ages enjoy 45-90 minutes (depending on the grade) of supervised (unstructured) free play in our urban play space each day. Both Primary and Junior grades have three recess times per day – morning, lunch and afternoon. This playground time is beloved by the children, and offers a kind of physical activity that is both child-directed and social. A great deal of learning takes place on our playground. The Primary students are also given an extra period of unstructured play each week.

Primary

To complement the free active time, VIS students attend Phys. Ed. classes 1-2 days out of 5 days. Beginning in grade 1 within the Phys Ed program we also strive to provide a balance, with students participating in a combination of team and individual activities. This allows for individual student preferences as well as skill development throughout the program.

The Phys Ed program offered to primary students includes:

  • Territory Games
  • Net/Wall Games
  • Cooperative Games
  • Dance
  • Gymnastics
  • Target Games
  • Outdoor Running Games
  • Track and Field

In addition, primary students have the opportunity to participate in extra-curricular sports throughout the school year including:

  • Cross Country Running
  • Basketball
  • Swimming
  • Track and Field
  • Intra-murals

Junior and Intermediate

Our physical education program for junior and intermediate grades reaches a cross range of physical activity while focusing on sportspersonship, leadership, coordination, movement, stability and health. Movement skills are taught in isolation, continually refined and then combined with other movement skills in a variety of games. Safety is addressed in the overall expectations for each grade and is implicit in all of the expectations of physical education.

In addition to learning skills through cooperative games, students will be studying and taking active participation in the following sport-based activities:

  • Cross Country Running
  • Team Territorial and Strategic Games
  • Ultimate Frisbee
  • Flag Football/Rugby
  • Basketball Fundamentals
  • Netball
  • Soccer
  • Movement/Stability Skills (Yoga, Gymnastics, Pilates)
  • Floorball/Ball Hockey
  • Badminton
  • Track and Field
  • Softball
  • Various other games

Our physical education program in conjunction with our extra-curricular sports includes vigorous physical activity for all learners throughout the school year which helps our students to become fit, independent learners; to develop interpersonal skills by interacting with others; and to relate fitness activities to healthy, productive lives.

Visit our Sports section for information on our competitive sports program.