Pupils urged to blend sports with academic work
The Supervisor of the Volta River Authority (VRA) basic schools at Akuse in the Lower Manya Krobo Municipality in the Eastern Region, Gladys Appiah, has advised pupils of the school to see sporting activities as important.
Mrs Appiah said blending sports and academic work would ensure the holistic development of the schoolchildren.
Addressing pupils of the VRA schools, also known as Grade School, during a term’s games and sporting activities last Wednesday, she said, “I am not advising you to forget about the academic work at the expense of sporting activities.
What I mean is that whilst you take academic work more seriously, you must also give equal attention to games and sports as we are doing today for your physical fitness and wellbeing.”
It was on the theme: “Physical exercise, academic work go hand in hand”.
Reduce stress
Mrs Appiah said co-curricular and sporting activities develop learners mentally, physically and socially, build their teamwork, skills and confidence, and also reduce stress among schoolchildren, as they stay in class for long hours.
“When they go outside the classroom, they relax, play, make more friends and enjoy themselves. It also improves their focus and discipline, encourages leadership and physically, it improves their cardiovascular health as they play and move up and down. By so doing, some of them do away with obesity.
“The school wants to expose them to games and sports as early as possible so that those who will use this as their future career will be identified and exposed. We have some of our students from this school who are outside the country now because of their early participation in games and sports,” the supervisor disclosed.
“We are training them holistically and so if we focus on the classroom only, it will not help them, as sports, classroom work and other values will help them to fit into the larger society,” she stated further, urging teachers and parents who have the mindset that it is only book knowledge that would help the learners to do away with it, and stressing that “education is like a tripod and if one leg is not there, the other two cannot stand.”
Effective teaching
The General Manager of VRA Schools, Eric Mensah Bonsu, also stressed the need for effective teaching and learning in addition to co-curricular activities for the total development of the learners.
“VRA schools exist to provide the best quality and affordable education that gives global exposure and enriching experience to the students and pupils, and that would not be compromised,” he said.
The Girls' Sports Prefect, Cindy Nana Akua Nudzi, who spoke with the Daily Graphic, commended the management of the school for the termly sporting activities on the academic calendar that made them go outside the classroom.
“You see the way we are enjoying ourselves outside the classroom. When we get back to the classrooms, we become fresh and our concentration is renewed,” she added.
