STUDENTS at a Riverland school took the opportunity to celebrate the Olympics Games recently, despite COVID-19 forcing the international sporting event to be rescheduled.
St Joseph’s School Renmark earlier this month held an Olympic Day aimed at promoting education of the summer Olympics, which were due to be held this month before being postponed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
St Joseph’s School Renmark PE teacher Astrid-Marie Powell said the event expanded upon Sport SA’s suggested Olympic celebrations.
“We got messages from Sport SA about their Olympic Day goals,” Ms Powell said.
“They had a calendar and everyday for the month of June had a different activity, so we looked through that and decided it would be a good idea to have a day where each class could have an event.”
Ms Powell said students in each year level were able to design unique activities for the day that replicated Olympic sports.
“We had a volleyball event, a skiing event which was awesome (because) they created laminated skis and went across the courts on them,” she said.
“There was some clay shooting using nerf guns, golf for the younger ones, a steeple chase obstacle with hurdles and we had equestrian where they created a little course as well.
“Then there was longest kick and longest throw. Each class came up with their own activity and tried to relate it back to a country.”
Ms Powell said students also created themed banners and paintings to decorate the school for the occasion.
“Our art teacher, Greg Reeks, got every student in his class to come up with a banner and paint it,” she said.
“I gave them all a different country, so it was related to their country and then we did general Olympic Day banners too.
“It was good because it added to the atmosphere on the day.”
Ms Powell said the school would likely hold a similar event when the Olympic Games are held in Tokyo next year.
“Even if they didn’t send out something about the Olympics, because it’s been postponed they wanted to educate (students) about the history of the Olympics,” she said.
“Even still we’ll celebrate the year and try to do a mini-games.
“We do sports days, but it’s something different and the classes can come up with their own ideas.
“I had a couple of kids come up and say thank you before we had even finished, which was awesome.”