Inspiration
Following The Social Distancing Rules, UK Schools Organize Exciting Isolation Games
These schools continued their traditional summer sports competition and tweaked it to suit the social distancing norms for their students
Three schools in Thanet, Kent (England), under the Viking Academy Trust, recently organised their annual sports competition while strictly following the social distancing norms.
Since 2018, the partner schools in the Viking Academy Trust have been hosting a week-long competition with children from each school divided into teams. Determined not to lose their tradition and fun activity time in the summer, the administration, with the help of their sports coaches, organised an online series of 2020 isolation challenges, that children could do safely at home.
These challenges included throwing a tea bag into a cup from different distances, running, cycling, star jumps, dribbling using pairs of socks instead of a football plus standing up while balancing a toilet roll on their head.
The championship went all summer long and was enjoyed by the kids, with their families filming their efforts and submitting to the schools’ online blogs. Older students, who returned to the school in June, completed these games in the premises itself.
It’s an inspiring effort by the administration in a very safe way. As per the WHO precaution norms, there must be a distance between people when they go out due to the Coronavirus scare. Many schools around the world are worrying because children are not as self-regulatory as adults could be, and so, reopening and wishing for them to run smoothly still seem like a far fetched idea. Until then innovative ideas like these can help keep the students enthusiastic as well as unharmed.
In this case, the isolation games were not just the way to keep the children busy and entertained, they also reminded them of the power of a community and that they are not alone in this. But most importantly, the session practically taught these children how to practice social distancing as they followed the game rules.
Viking Academy Trust executive headteacher, Michaela Lewis, told the Thanet Gazette, “It was a fantastic success and of course the real winner was our brilliant school community. So, our PE leaders and staff have decided that the 2020 winners are all of the teams that took part, each school will have a trophy with the four team colour ribbons attached to celebrate our togetherness and determination to success during a difficult and unprecedented time for all of us.”
This initiative was no doubt a very successful and brilliant idea on the Viking Academy’s part.