Students at Thomas Mitchell PS attend a weekly physical education class with a specialist trained PE teacher. Lessons are based on the Victorian Curriculum designed to develop basic fundamental skills around moving the body, understanding movement, and learning through movement. These lessons also familiarise students with a wide range of equipment where children are taught to work cooperatively in small groups using teamwork.
At Thomas Mitchell PS our gymnasium is extensively used during both P.E. and sport sessions. Other outdoor facilities include an artificial turf play area and soccer pitch, a running track, basketball and netball courts, sandpit and two playgrounds.
Activities taught at each year level (Prep to Year 6) are based on the student’s stage of development. Topics covered include fitness circuits, running for fitness & health, ball handling including throwing and catching.
Swimming: Years 3 to 6 students are invited to attend swimming trials where a district team is formed to compete against students from other schools in the Endeavour Hills District. Events include 50m individual freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and 4 x 50m relay races in freestyle and a medley event.
Cross Country: A cross country team is selected from the results of the TMPS cross country event. Students in years 3 to 6 who are placed in the top 9 in their age group are invited to join the district team. These students compete against students from other schools in the Endeavour Hills District Cross Country Run.
Athletics: An athletics team is selected from the results of the TMPS Athletics Carnival. Students in years 3 to 6 who are placed in the top 2 in their running, jumping or throwing event form the district team. These students compete against students from other schools in the Endeavour Hills District.
District/Division/Regional/State progression: Students in years 3 to 6 who win their event in the Endeavour Hills District swimming, cross country or athletics events have the opportunity to progress to the next level, Casey North Division. If successful at the division level students may continue to progress to the Southern Metropolitan Regional level. The final stage of progression is the Victorian State Championships held against the best competitors across the state.
Year 6 Sport: Twice per year the year 6 students compete against students from surrounding schools in Endeavour Hills in various sports at a Gala Day. This event is the culmination of students practising the skills of the sport and game play throughout the preceding term in their year 6 sport classes at school.
In Semester One, the students select from the current sports of; handball, netball, soccer, T-ball & volleystars. The Semester Two sports include; basketball, cricket, hockey, softball & sofcrosse.
If successful at the Endeavour Hills District Gala Day teams progress to the division competition.
Sport and Physical Education are often confused with each other. Put simply, P.E. is the skill-based lessons the P.E. teacher teaches based on the Victorian Curriculum. Students learn the physical skills, understand the importance of fitness and the health benefits of playing sport. P.E. lessons are not necessarily designed with the goal of promoting competitive purposes, but rather for physical and health fitness.
Sport at Thomas Mitchell consists of year level games from years 3 to 6 where teachers teach the rules and basic skills and rules of different sports. Year level sport can be based on competition to encourage students to play sport outside of school. These sports sessions involve putting into practice skills learned through both P.E. lessons and student’s prior experiences outside of school.
All students are allocated to a house upon entry to the school. Our house colours are as follows:
BRADMAN HOUSE - RED
PERKINS HOUSE - GREEN
FREEMAN HOUSE - LIGHT BLUE
FRASER HOUSE – ORANGE
Our houses are named after the following Australian athletes/sportspeople:
Sir Donald Bradman, AC, Australian International cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time.
Kieran Perkins, OAM – Commonwealth and Olympic Games athlete who represented Australia in freestyle swimming. He specialised in the 1500 metre freestyle, winning successive Olympic Gold Medals in the 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games.
Cathy Freeman, OAM – Commonwealth and Olympic Games athlete who represented Australia in athletics, specialising in the 400 metres event. She won gold medals in the 200m and 400m at the 1994 Commonwealth Games. Cathy won a gold medal at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and a silver medal at the 1996 Olympics games.
FRASER HOUSE - ORANGE
Dawn Fraser, AC, MBE – Commonwealth and Olympic Games athlete who represented Australia in freestyle swimming. She is one of only three swimmers to have won the same Olympic individual event three times (women’s 100 metre freestyle)
Classroom and specialist teachers use the house point system in their classroom as a reward and incentive scheme and for activities such as indoor and outdoor games, years 3, 4, 5 and 6 sport and other group activities. Each year students participate in the annual school cross country and athletics carnival and dress in their house colours. Rewards are provided to students for participating and extra points are given to those who achieve excellent results. At the end of each semester the final scores are announced, and the winning house receives recognition via a whole house reward. This is announced at the end of each semester at the final Whole School Assembly.
