A wave of surprise and questions resonated through the community after the announcement of the new health and fitness class requirement for next year’s senior class. The truth behind the class has become a common topic of discussion around the school.
Originally, the new physical education course was scheduled to be one term long with another class filling the other term, but due to a lack of course options it evolved into a semester class.
“We only really had one candidate as a term course, which was the current events, but it would have been a little bit too meager to just have one, or even two of those sorts of things,” Principal Tom Mead said.
Lengthening the course allowed it to fall into place with other classes.
“Semester classes run in line with the other courses,” Guidance Department chair Lisa Connery said.
The transformation into a semester class allows for more options and freedom in the curriculum, which will include first aid, emotional and physical health and some free choice activities.
“One thing that we’re thinking about is that maybe within each class there’s choices to be made, and do it in an almost democratic way. They’ll come up with a selection of modules that each classroom might be able to choose,” Mead said.
The faculty is excited to develop a fun and informative senior health and fitness course.
“Some stuff will be good for college life. Some of those things will be like core content, and then within the program we’ll have some choices as far as activities go,” health and fitness department chair Brian Mawson said.
The new requirement of physical education for seniors came as a shock to many, and faculty hopes to smoothly assimilate students into the program.
“We will be offering seniors who are absolutely booked, the class coming in as seniors and also current sophomores going to juniors, the chance to substitute something outside of the school. We’ll go through a process around that for approving it and also requiring them to do a journal on what they are doing,” Mead said.
The health and fitness class was developed with the intentions to help students learn vital information to live a healthy lifestyle and have an enjoyable break in their days.
“I look forward to working to put a program together that will help seniors as they graduate from Algonquin, and that will also help them in their senior year to have an avenue to alleviate stress,” Mawson said.