SAIIER 2021:Dehashakti School of Physical Education

Scholarship and Educational Fund (SEF)		Dehashakti Football tournament
Entity::Dehashakti School of Physical Education by Satyavan

The Dehashakti program is open to the students of the schools of Auroville. We currently have students from Deepanam, Transition and Last School. After requests from parents, we opened it to students of TLC (The Learning Community) and some more kids of Auroville who are not particularly attending an Auroville school for this academic year.

Our program is planned so as to develop all the components of fitness including cardiovascular fitness, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility and body composition for the students. We also focus on the skill-related fitness factors such as agility, balance, coordination, power, reaction time and speed.

While physical fitness is an important aspect we also give importance in developing the qualities that the students would benefit from their entire lives through the medium of physical education: discipline, courage, team play, self-control, equal acceptance of defeat or victory, fair play/competition and hardiness.

All the above mentioned components and qualities are explored, worked upon and reinforced through a wide variety of sports activities – both individual and team sports.

Activities of the year:

The academic year 2020-21 with the Covid pandemic restrictions forced us to stop the regular sports program. Therefore we proposed an alternative program where we focused only on the physical activities which do not involve physical contact with each other. This started from the second week of September 2020, after a break of several months. These activities continued even during the school term break of September-October, and finally paused again in the third week of April 2021 with the new surge in Covid cases.

To allow a maximum number of students to have access to these activities and keep the groups smaller (6 children in each group), we changed our organization and schedule completely. We offered physical education from 9am to 12pm and 2 to 5pm, from Monday to Friday in contrast to the regular hours (2- 5pm).

In September 2020, to begin with we started with Table Tennis and Badminton and then later at the beginning of November, we also started Basketball and some specific classes for 2nd graders. Eventually, from January 2021, we added more activities like Cycling and Futsal. Finally, at the beginning of March 2021, we offered some specific classes for 1st graders as well. About 170 students participated in one or more activities this year, from 1 to 8 times per week and from a few weeks to the full year.

Outcomes:

What was really unique this year was that each student had to choose the activity they would like to engage in. There was no obligation on any student and all who signed up did so because they were genuinely interested. Naturally, this attitude was very beneficial for progress in the activity and the skills of the students. Since the number of activities offered was reduced and sessions increased they had more time to learn, apply, memorize and integrate some basic skills. We noticed that during this Covid time, the students were more aware of their progress and were in general more motivated and inspired to learn and push their limits further. We organized one Badminton and two Table Tennis tournaments during this period and received a great participation from the students.

Reflections:

Given the circumstances, the biggest challenge was to organize the time tables as each student had a specific schedule with his/her school, and parents also organized specific activities for their children when most of the school classes were done online.

The lack of a school bus was a big hindrance since many parents are working and find it difficult to drop and pick up their kids on a regular basis.

After following this unique way of teaching during the Covid time, the team felt that when we work on a specific activity (game, individual or team sport) over a longer period of time, frequently and in smaller groups, it provides us (teachers) the space to work on innovative practice sessions and make them more intense and meaningful for the students. It also allows us to better evaluate our work and students’ respective progress, and give space to adapt our teaching at an individual level.

Conclusion:

We hope to restart our regular program in the new academic year with learnings from this year, with rich, renewed experiences and methods of conducting sports sessions.