What you can do to support physical literacy development of your children.
- Ensure your child has access to a Quality Physical Education program. Ask:
- How often do my children receive physical education?
- Who is teaching physical education? Is the teacher qualified? Enthusiastic? Prepared?
- Is the school fulfilling the minimum mandated time for physical education as stated in the provincial curriculum?
- Is your child receiving the opportunity to develop skills in a variety of areas within and outside of the physical education class?
- Is the school providing the nationally recommended standard of 150 minutes of physical education each week?
- Does the school have the resources needed to provide a quality program (equipment, facilities, teaching support)?
- How often is physical education cancelled and for what reasons?
- Does your child look forward to physical education class?
- Does your child’s school receive the national Quality Daily Physical Education (QDPE) Recognition Award Program (RAP)?
If you answered no to any of the questions above, take the time to speak to your child’s teacher or principal to encourage improvements to the program. If necessary, take this request to the ministry of education. You may want to encourage other parents to take similar action in order to maximize the “parent voice” – as the parent voice within the school system is very powerful in supporting positive improvements.
- Enroll your child in community recreation and sport programs to increase opportunities to develop physical literacy, to put in practice the skills your child is learning through school physical education, and to increase opportunities for your child to be physically active. When selecting programs, try to find those programs that cover a range of skills, rather than single sport programs. Most importantly, select activities that your child enjoys and wants to participate in to ensure a positive experience and ongoing participation.
- Make an effort to integrate physical activity and sport activities into your family lifestyle. This makes for quality family time and studies show that active parents are more apt to have healthy, active kids.
- Canadian Sport For Life has created an excellent guide for parents entitled, "Developing Physical Literacy - A Guide for parents of children ages 0-12" which you can download by clicking here.