Students in the Sun West School Division are improving in their overall fitness according to the latest report from the recently implemented FitsStats program.

In the 2011-12 school year, 64 per cent of students ranked in the top two categories of physical fitness which classifies them as very fit, while the number of students in the lowest category of physical fitness dropped five percentage points from the school year previous to 20 per cent.

FitStats is a division-wide program that acts as an online tool for phys-ed teachers and individual students to track grades 6 to 12 student’s fitness levels through a common test in terms of health, which focuses on cardio-respiratory fitness and muscular strength, and in terms of skill related fitness, which takes into account power and agility.

Miles Bennett, Sun West School Division athletic commissioner/phys-ed mentor, said these results show students and phys-ed teachers are using the FitsStats program to improve on the division’s student fitness levels.

“No other jurisdiction in the province and no other school division in this province have this kind of data,” said Bennett. “Every phys-ed teacher out there is working almost independently. They are doing fitness tests and might be doing similar fitness testing, but you can’t really correlate the data because it’s not necessarily going to be all the same in how you do it.

“Based on the results that we’re seeing is the health of kids in Sun West is all pretty good and we can use that data to plan what we can do to improve the health of those kids in the lower (category). That is our objective.”

He said this program has provided “standardization” for all phys-ed teachers in the school division to test their students properly in order to understand where their students stand compared to other schools in the division.

Bennett first tried the program as a pilot at his school, Rosetown Central High, where he has served as a phys-ed teacher for 26 years. He then took the proposal for FitStats to the school division and three years later all the schools had signed on.

“We had a push-up test…in the 2010-11 year we had 2,800 entries and last year we had just about 28,000 entries,” he said. “It was a 1,000 per cent increase.”

To read more please see the Oct. 22 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Vive le Québec!  Long live Saskatchewan!

The act of being immersed in another’s culture, language and day-to-day life is being embraced by a Davidson School student and her “twin” from Québec as they travel and live in each other’s homes, communities and provinces for a span of three months this school year.

Davidson School Grade 11 student Paige Hodgins, 16, is welcoming École secondaire De Rochebelle Grade 10 pupil Andrea Rocha, 15, to her home in town this fall as part of a Saskatchewan-Québec student exchange program, which will see Paige travel to Québec City at the end of January.

While in their different communities, the girls are and will be immersed in the other’s language and culture in order to gain a better understanding of their twin’s unique part of Canada.

“Davidson is really different from Québec,” said Andrea adding residents of Québec City refer to it as just Québec. “The first things that I saw when I came here is it is really more familiar, maybe because it’s smaller. There is more religion, like more churches here too.”

Andrea said the school in town is a bit smaller than De Rochebelle, which translates to beautiful stone and has over 2,000 students, but that is fine with her. She said the residents of Davidson are “really nice” and Paige’s friends have taken her in as one of their own, so she is doing OK as she discovers the Land of the Living Skies.

“It’s a new experience for me,” she said. “In Saskatchewan it’s rural, but that’s really important. There is more English for sure. It’s in the same country, but I think something that I could say is the society is a little bit different. I hope to learn in the same country how we can live differently and how the people can be different.”

Paige said she is “really excited” to move into Andrea’s home in Québec City at the end of January, which will have her plunge into the French language and culture of the historic city on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River.

“I can’t wait,” said Paige. “We don’t have French offered here anymore because Ms. Low (former Davidson School French teacher Arlene Low) left the school, but I did take French over the summer and a little bit now until we finish. I have taken it all through school, but the best way to learn is immersion and that is why I wanted to do this.”

Paige said she applied to enter the exchange program in the last school year on the advice of Low and will join several other students from across Saskatchewan who are travelling to la belle province for French language studies.

To read more please see the Oct. 22 print edition of The Davidson Leader.