Head of Sport: Emma Wood
What does your role involve?
I am responsible for the College’s IGSSA sporting program and our Interhouse sports activities.
What do you enjoy about the Health & Physical Education Learning Area at SMC?
We have a great team of talented teachers. We have a wonderful spread of interests and talents which I feel benefit our girls. I also love how there is never a dull moment in PE. We always have events, fixtures or exciting activities happening in our learning area.
I love being part of such as passionate department, we love what we do and truly believe we can make a difference for the young women we work with.
Which of the connecting learning to life attributes do you feel that your learning area develops especially well in students?
By the nature of the subject we teach, I think one of the aspects we develop well in our girls is dealing with failure. As fun as sports are, we can’t always win and we are always working with the girls as to how to win with humility and how to bounce back from losing. There is always an excellent learning opportunity in our perceived failures and I feel it is our role to guide the girls into working out what that lesson is.
Another attribute that I think we help our girls develop is recognising our strengths and weaknesses and, almost more importantly, recognising strengths and weaknesses in others. You can’t be an effective team unless you know what you can bring to the group and what your teammates are able to contribute.
Given the current circumstances, how is your learning area adapting?
With the current situation we are well aware that many of our girls are struggling and craving some level of normality. We still feel that it is vitally important for the girls to continue engaging in physical activity during this time and are therefore providing many alternative and appropriate activities for them. We’re confident that whilst this isn’t the ideal situation we are still giving our girls a sporting outlet during this tricky time.
- ConnectingLearning2Life, Featured
Author: Santa Maria College
Santa Maria College is a vibrant girls school with a growing local presence and reputation. Our Mission is to educate young Mercy women who act with courage and compassion to enrich our world. Santa Maria College is located in Attadale in Western Australia, 16 km from the Perth CBD. We offer a Catholic education for girls in Years 5 – 12 and have 1300 students, including 152 boarders.