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School's sports program kicks goals for outcomes

August 01 2012


School's sports program kicks goals for outcomes

Aiming high ... Marsden students are able to combine the dual pursuits of sporting excellence and academic outcomes.

Marsden State High School's pursuit of excellence through sports has been built around a core literacy and numeracy program.

The Sports Excellence Program has been running at Marsden since 2008, giving students the opportunity to improve their academic and sporting ability in parallel while successfully completing their Senior Certificate studies.

With its Smarter Schools National Partnership funding the school has been able to employ a director of sports excellence, which has resulted in the development of five schools of sporting excellence: rugby league, soccer, basketball, girls' touch football and volleyball.

At the core of the Sports Excellence Program is a compulsory literacy and numeracy program which runs in parallel to timetabled classes. This has contributed to improvements in student literacy and numeracy outcomes, as evidenced through NAPLAN results.

A Sports Excellence Program judiciary system has been developed to support and further develop students' academic outcomes. This connects and profiles their social, behavioural, attendance and academic outcomes to form an individual education contract. Sports excellence students are closely monitored and held accountable for their outcomes through the judiciary system.

Principal Alan Jones believes the program has been instrumental in increasing school enrolments by 400-plus in the past five years, significantly engaging students in the core business of learning through the vehicle of sport.

Other key outcomes for the school have been successfully re-engaging at-risk students in schooling, improved academic outcomes for a broad and diverse range of students, improved retention and attendance rates, improved positive behaviour results and improved transitions to further education beyond school and sporting representation at state, national and international level.

The Sports Excellence Program has brought significant improvements in academic achievement and attendance for the students involved. Through its focus on academic results, parents have identified clear improvements in overall schooling outcomes.