MORNA INTERNATIONAL IBIZA

A letter from the General Manager about developments in Secondary Sports, distributed to parents in Years 7 to 10.





Dear Parents

I am aware that recent developments in our school Sports programme have aroused your curiosity and lead to some requests for clarification. Therefore I would like to offer you a summary of our plans for development in this area of the curriculum.

When I became involved with Morna, one of the areas in which it was clear that the school was lacking was a full-time Sports Instructor, someone who could spearhead an interesting and stimulating PE curriculum that offered much more than the standard, boring school exercise programmes.

With this in mind, when I recruited Paul Politiek, our sports instructor, I charged him with developing interesting and challenging sports and exercise programmes at all levels throughout the school that, particularly at the secondary level, would be varied and stimulating. Having invested enormous sums of money in many different areas in the school, I had limited immediate budget for additional sports and told him that he needed to be inventive and creative. Since I consider exercise to be an essential part of a healthy life, totally believing in the dictum “mens sana in corpore sano” I am very personally involved in what he is doing and I will attempt to explain it to you.

Paul has given a great deal of energy and motivation to the students during their normal gym lessons, AND in their breaks, introducing a variety of sporting activities and supervising them. These have been well received by the students, particularly the younger ones, although unfortunately in the secondary classes there are a significant number of pupils who bring notes from their parents justifying their exemption from sports. PE, in whatever form the school teaches it, forms a part of the curriculum, it is not optional and 100% participation from ALL children is required. Since the principal reason for apathy towards PE amongst the older students is that it was “boring”, the solution was to make it more interesting. The challenge was how to do this with, what at present, are limited facilities.
Addressing this challenge Paul and I have spent a great deal of time working on different programmes for the short, medium and long term and we have developed the following broad framework which is, at the moment a “wish-list”, but which is already materialising:

A.

For the short term, and to introduce elements of variety and interest to our PE programme we have already made arrangements with the Nirvana Gym in San Jordi, for weekly visits, which as you are aware has been advised to parents. There were some teething problems to sort out during the first visit which I personally involved myself in, but in general the session went well, we have received good feedback from students and I am confident that next week will run smoothly. The objective is to take the students into a well organised and controlled inside environment, where weather is not an issue (a problem at this time of year), and to introduce them to the basics of gymnasium conduct and behaviour, and the principles of warm-up and stretching. In general the boys will then embark on an introduction, and I stress introduction, to the good use and understanding of the function of a variety of exercise machines, both aerobic and anaerobic. The keywords are knowledge, control, flexibility and exercise, and under no circumstances will they engage in muscular development or the use of free weights. The girls are receiving “Batuka” classes, an aerobic dance form to a Latin beat, which is “de moda” at the moment, and which develops co-ordination while providing excellent exercise. Nirvana was one of a number of potential locations that were approached, and was selected because of the facilities, ease of control of a group of teenagers, quality of the instructors, ambience and, critically, the willingness of the owners to involve the gym in an educational programme.


B.

The intention is that this programme will continue through this term, and that next term physical education will return to the school site when it will focus around the fitness trail that is going to be installed in the woods. This exciting project, which I see as the medium term addition to the PE programme, and which is, as many of you may know, being funded by the IPAMIC, has received approval from Medio Ambiente in Palma, and we are awaiting delivery of the formal document, (hopefully within the next two weeks according to information that I received from Palma today) to enable the contractor to start work. This facility, in conjunction with the existing exercise courts will provide variety and a stimulating exercise environment and we are delighted that IPAMIC is involved in this on your behalf.


C.

A major programme for the future which we are working on for the next school year, is a four year programme (Years 7 to 10) that will blend a number of outdoor activities with exercise on the premises. This programme, which is as adventurous in its concept as it is in its content, is intended to introduce students to activities such as diving, sailing, climbing, caving, mountain biking, kayaking, the objective being to actively educate students in these sports while advancing their physical and mental development.


D.

Another programme for the future is a “five-a-side” football pitch. This requires planning permission which is being sought from the Consell. When this has been obtained the school has an extremely generous benefactor who has promised to build this for us. At that time we hope that the school will have grown and Morna will be better able to actively enter the school football league.


E.

Along with the football pitch, planning permission has been requested for a multi-function building which we will able to use for a number of things including carrying out exercises whatever the weather. We understand that this request is being favourably viewed by the Consell, and are hopeful that we will receive a licence in the not too distant future.
I hope that this long explanation of what we are trying to achieve gives you an insight into why we have recently started this programme at the Nirvana gym. We are trying to stimulate interest in PE by making it more interesting, more varied and thus more fun.



With regard to specific questions that have been raised by parents:

1.

It is completely legal for under sixteen year olds to enter a gym if they are supervised by adults, in this case our sports instructor and the dance instructor, who is also a fully qualified sports instructor.
2.

The current programme forms part of the PE curriculum, and is not an optional activity. Since students travel by coach to the gym, and travel off the property requires approval from parents, we are required to request your permission just as we have done for transporting students to and from the swimming pool in Santa Gertrudis, an addition to the PE programme that we commenced last year.
3.

Regarding insurance we are advised that we are covered through the school’s insurance policy.

In closing may I say that I had a most enjoyable and quite lengthy discussion with a small group of the boys the first day of the Nirvana programme, explaining most of the foregoing to them. Their interest was apparent and they were gratifyingly enthusiastic about participating in the programme.

I am convinced that our students will gain considerable benefit from participating in this enhanced sports programme over the next few years and naturally assume that their parents will share the school’s enthusiasm for the development. If any of you would like to receive further clarification or offer suggestions I will be holding an open meeting (for secondary parents) next Tuesday, 27th January at 15:15 in the school dining room.

With kind regards

Graham Wilkinson