Riverview Sports

This week for student teaching I attended St.Ignatius Riverview College on a Thursday versus my usual Friday. What I did not know was that Thursday was sports day for the fifth and sixth grade. When I arrived, all of the boys were wearing their sports warm-ups instead of their usual uniform. After lunch, all of the boys went to sports practice instead of having class for the rest of the day. This is completely different from anything I have seen in the US. While many schools put strong value on their sports programs in the US, none would allow sports time to take away from academic time. I found it very interesting that every single on of the boys at the school had to play a sport. This season, they got to chose from soccer, rugby, or AFL. Within these sports, they had an A, B, and C team for both the eleven year olds and the twelve year olds. When it was time for sports, coaches came from all over the school. I was surprised to see all of the teachers out on the field because they did not strike me as sports people but they were just as involved as anyone else. The practice ran for about two hours and the boys seemed to really enjoy themselves. I was very pleased to see how much of good sports they were to each other and that I did not witness any fighting. It was clear to me that Riverview must really stress good sportsmanship amongst the boys. The idea of Thursday sports practice is so that the fifth and sixth grade boys do not have to get home late during the week but will still be prepared for Saturday's sports games.