During 2020, the NSW Premier’s Sporting Challenge (PSC) team worked with a range of stakeholders to design and implement strategies and programs to support schools in encouraging daily participation in physical activity. The significant challenges presented by COVID-19 and its impact on the daily operations in NSW schools required processes and procedures to be done differently. As a result, the PSC team developed a suite of strategies to support physical activity both in schools and in the home.

GetActive@Home is a digital online program, which was developed to support primary school staff, parents and students during the period of home learning. The program to date, has had over 40,000 views. It includes a series of presenter-led episodes that take students through the learning of specific techniques to perform a range of foundational movement skills. It also includes other resources such as lesson guides, assessment proformas and tracking cards. These resources can be accessed on the School Sport Unit website. Teachers are encouraged to continue utilising the program to support the teaching of Physical Education and as an option for classroom energisers or active homework.

Race Around Australia (RAA) is a virtual physical activity challenge that supports participation in daily physical activity in NSW schools. The program was to be piloted in 2020 to a small group of schools. However due to COVID-19, the pilot size was increased to provide more schools with the opportunity. RAA was piloted in 46 schools and 46 corporate department office teams, totalling 4,300 participants. These schools and teams raced around a virtual map of Australia, clocking up RAA kilometres from their daily activity. Along the way, participants’ unlocked content blogs aligned to curriculum key learning areas and also received personal achievement badges. The review of this pilot challenge has shown very positive results, such as increased physical activity time across the week for most participants and specifically for students, improved on-task behaviour in the classroom. The most exciting outcome is that students have continued to ask their teachers when they can take part again. This challenge will be offered to all Department of Education schools in 2021.

The PSC team was delighted to see that overall participation in the PSC 10 week Challenge exceeded 2019 and saw significant increases in staff and secondary student participants. Existing resources were amended to be more accessible for online learning and some new resources were developed. The PSC Tracker app was adapted to be accessible on any device so that activity can be tracked online. A series of activity cards were developed to provide teachers and students with quality options to engage in various skill-based and foundational movement activities whilst at school and at home. New digital and editable logbooks were created, so teachers could share with their students through online learning at home. New PSC@Home certificates were also created, so parents and carers could recognise their children for their efforts in completing their physical activity.

The traditional face-to-face nature of professional learning also had to be considered during 2020. The School Sport Unit worked with various partners to develop online courses to support remote and self-paced learning. Delivery through webinar was also trialled for some courses. These included support for school leaders to implement the 2021-2024 School Excellence Cycle, Meet Manager Online and Burn2Learn. These new developments allowed teachers from all over NSW to access the learning opportunities and have been considered highly successful. This type of course delivery will be further explored throughout 2021, with courses such as Thinking While Moving and Games-Based Learning currently being developed.