Professional Learnings NSWPPA Educational Leadership

NSW Department of Education Sports Unit: Part 3 of 4: The Brain-Sport Connection: How Physical Activity Boosts Learning

• NSW PPA Professional Learning

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The connection between physical activity and brain development isn't just anecdotal—it's backed by compelling scientific research that should revolutionize how we think about sport in schools. When students exercise, their brains produce more BDNF enzyme, which supports memory formation, reduces anxiety, and significantly enhances learning capacity. One study showed students who participated in high-intensity fitness before tutoring improved their test scores by over 20%, compared to just 3.87% improvement in students who received tutoring alone.

James Boyer from the NSW School Sports Unit explains that timing matters: "If we do physical activity just before we want to learn something new, it really gets kids ready to learn." This challenges the false dichotomy between academic time and physical activity time, suggesting instead that movement creates optimal conditions for learning.

Meanwhile, the School Swimming and Water Safety Program celebrates 70 years of providing vital skills to 100,000 students annually across 1,400 NSW schools. Beyond safety, these programs deliver profound wellbeing benefits, particularly for students from diverse backgrounds who gain confidence and connection through participation.

Perhaps most moving are the stories of inclusion through the multi-class sports pathway. Peter Cardy shares how a student named Sophie transformed from hiding her limb difference to becoming confident and outgoing through participating in classified sport competitions. Last year saw record participation with 192 multi-class athletes at state championships.

For school leaders, the Sport and Physical Activity School Health Check provides a framework to assess and improve school programs based on five key areas: policy, quality sport, physical activity throughout the day, community engagement, and staff involvement. This isn't about ticking boxes—it's about creating comprehensive wellbeing strategies with direct academic benefits.

Want to transform student wellbeing and learning outcomes? Contact the NSW School Sports Unit for tailored support and access their extensive resources through the teacher hub.

Link to NSW School Sports Unit:

https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/curriculum/school-sport

Links and References:

To view our Professional Learning Offerings, visit:
https://www.nswppa.org.au/professional-learning

To view our latest offerings, visit: https://www.nswppa.org.au/catalogue






Drew:

Welcome back to Professional Learning's, the New South Wales PPA Educational Leadership Podcast. It's great to have your company. This podcast aligns to the values of the New South Wales Primary Principals Association, that is, the values of principal wellbeing, principals as lead learners, as well as supporting principals to lead school operations. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe for further updates. Now let's get into today's latest episode. Welcome to our special four-part series with the NSW Department of Education Sports Unit. This is the third episode of a four-part series. We have created this as a special four-part series as there is so much content and information to share with you and we look forward to sharing this four-part series of approximately 30 to 35 minutes per podcast episode.

Drew:

In this episode, episode three, we hear from James Boyer, who is the sport and physical activity coordinator and is also the principal education officer for the New South Wales school sport unit, and he's joined by Peter Cardy, who is the athletics convener for the New South Wales school sports unit. There's some really interesting research that is shared about the effect of brain with physical exercise, and Peter shares a powerful story of inclusion through school sport. So really well worth listening. And if you're listening and thinking, how does the school sport unit align with professional learning? That's a great question. Well, the short answer and it's really unpacked in this episode a lot. There is lots of evidence-based research, science around the brain, alignment with your school excellence framework, the well-being benefits of sport and retention, supporting student with disabilities, as well as practical and sound advice based around current policies, just to name a few. With all of that, let's start now. With all of that, let's start now.

Drew:

Our next guest in this podcast series is James Boyer. James is a Sport and Physical Activity Coordinator and is also the Principal Education Officer for the NSW School Sports Unit.

James:

So I'm James Boyer. My job title is Sport and Physical Activity Coordinator. I'm a Principal Education Officer in the School Sport.

Drew:

Unit Fantastic and James, welcome firstly to our podcast. Great for you to be with us today. Thanks for having me, James. Let's go through your title and your role and we can go through and unpack that further and how it can support principals. So let's just start with what is your role and what is your role within the sports unit.

James:

Yeah, great, thank you. So I'm one of the leaders here in the sport unit, so I'm a principal education officer. I lead a number of programs, for instance, all to do with sport and physical activity. I guess Peter's already gone through some of the arms of the unit and we have the representative arm. Well, I do everything that's essentially non-representative, more or less so primarily supporting schools in sport and physical activity. So what does that look like? We've heard from Michael, who's talked about the professional learning and the resources. So I'm leading that strategy.

James:

The school swimming and water safety program that's something that I've taken over at the start of the year and I know that many of the principals will be familiar with that because we have 1,400 primary schools involved in it. It also extends. We do some funding for stage six students or stage sorry stage four students as well. What else do I do? So the disabilities program comes under my banner. Michael is managing that, but it sort of is my responsibility as well, and the Premier Sporting Challenge at the moment is currently one of my programs as well. However, the management of that is moving next year.

Drew:

Well, I'm sure you've got some stats to share in terms of highlights of those programs. Do you have anything you could share with us today for highlights of those particular?

James:

programs. Sure, I mean I mentioned already we have 1, 1400 primary schools involved in the school swimming and water safety program. We're trying to increase that, but we're, you know it's almost every primary school already, so there's 1500.

Drew:

So say that again. You've got 1400 so far. Okay. So with these colleagues there are 1800 primary, principal, primary schools and actually 1,800 members of our association. So the challenge for those listening is another 400. I'm hearing yeah.

James:

Yeah, so there's definitely room for us to grow there and I guess I could talk about that. There's 100,000 students each year that get swimming lessons through the Department of Education. Through this program the department funds the tuition so the schools or the students have to pay for, you know, where appropriate, pool entry and bus costs, which you know, we know can be challenging. But the department is funding the tuition and that's either through what we call a central program where we organize the teachers, the schools come to the pool and we bring the swim teachers they're all Department of Ed NESesta trained teachers or in some areas, particularly in regional, regional and remote areas, where we, you know, it's not really practical for us to send the staff, we provide funding for schools to deliver a program we call a school-based delivery, where they go to their local pool and they get local providers, where we provide the funding for that as well oh, that's such an important program and we hope it does continue Such important work.

Drew:

Do you tell us in terms of what's the process for schools who are looking to access that funding?

James:

Yeah, I'd like to think that it's pretty easy to apply for the funding. We have what we call our Dash app website where schools can apply. They log in pretty straightforward process. They assign a swim coordinator you know somebody who we can contact who's going to look after it they decide whether they're school-based or central, based to those two programs that I explained, and they give us their numbers and so really, we're targeting students from year two and up who are not, who or who cannot swim. It's a learn to swim program, a year's two to six up, and they give us their numbers and then, if it's a central program, they just choose which pools their preference is and when in the year they want to come, and that's it. That's the process. It's three steps and then we take it from there.

Drew:

So learn to swim program, I'm hearing years two to six, correct?

James:

me if I'm wrong, okay.

Drew:

And in terms of the funding and support offered, which is terrific. What about the training and professional learning for teachers? Is that part of the program, or does part of the program involve having already trained swim instructors?

James:

Yeah. So if you come to one of our central programs, which predominantly is, you know, metropolitan Sydney, but also the Hunter, there's a lot of central programs, north Coast, south Coast as well. They're all NESA trained teachers or typically very rarely do we use somebody who's not a teacher and they all have swim teacher qualifications. So they're very highly trained individuals and are very successful For teachers, who I guess you know, or for schools who do school-based or who want to have get their training. We do have a really great relationship with some of the providers out there and happy to provide advice or support or tell schools where teachers can go to get the training if they want to deliver the program themselves.

Drew:

Yeah, yeah and I'm thinking from the principal perspective for our listeners going, tell us what are the rules or there is a ratio that we need to be, aware of. It's all that planning stuff that we want to make sure again we do right as principals. Can you guide us through that Sure?

James:

I agree it can be complex. Lucette King, my colleague, is the expert on policy and I know that you will be talking to her later. So certainly anything I don't cover she'll be able to cover and anything that I guess any questions. You know we really pride ourselves on being really responsive and available for principals, but I guess it's easier if you can get it right from the start. Don't have to come to us.

James:

So the teaching ratio is? It changes depending on the age of the students, potentially if they've got a disability, and their capabilities as well, but typically it's around 1 to 15 as a teaching ratio, but we always want two staff members there as a minimum to be able to supervise as well. So it's 1 to 15 for teaching but it's 1 to 12 for supervision. So, basically saying, we always have two people there. So if you've got a class of 30, then I think typically you would have two teachers teaching the 15 students and you would have another staff member supervising the whole area making sure that the everybody's safe. When it comes to our programs, for the central programs we a maximum of 60 students at any one time. That's sort of a typical program 60 students and we provide four teachers. So we're covering that 1 to 15 ratio with our teachers and then we use the school staff to help with supervision around the pool as well the teachers that come with the school yeah, it's such an.

Drew:

They're the sort of important things to make sure that schools get right and principals want to ensure they get right and such. How long has the program been going for?

James:

Well, this is actually our 70th year, the 70th year of the program. Congratulations.

Peter:

Yeah, well, thank you.

James:

I've only been working directly on it for one year, so I'm hoping I don't break it, but so far so good. Yeah, 70 years and yeah, 100,000 students each year accessing Learn to Swim through department schools. I think it's really quite incredible.

Drew:

That is amazing stat to share, but obviously, like anything, we want to increase those figures and, as we said at the start, we have approximately 1,400 schools at the moment and potentially increasing that, ideally. Colleagues, you can hear the impact of the work. I mean learning to swim is a fundamental, almost human right, isn't it?

Drew:

Absolutely, when we think about that Particularly in Australia, yeah, and student swimming is integral to ensuring that they're safe, and it's also the benefits are amazing as well. Are there any benefits actually that you do have that you could elaborate on?

James:

well, I mean in in terms of swimming.

James:

You know, I think it opens up a whole world for students.

James:

We, we do some work I know that this is, you know, in uh, in secondary schools and we've been working with I know it's a little bit off topic there, but with some new arrivals, and recently we worked with school, got some feedback from a school of how much benefit these students got from it. Where some of them had, you know, like zero confidence participating in swimming at the start of the program, by the end they, you know, could they swim well, they could stay afloat, so much so that they, when, when they had their swimming carnival, they basically had full participation from the students in the school. And I mean, what is that bring? Well, it brought confidence to the kids. It made them feel more connected to their peers because they're actually able to participate and they got the enjoyment out of that. You know they can enjoy the full benefits of, you know, this wonderful climate that we've got and being able to go swimming, like you said, a fundamental right. So that was a really nice case study there.

Drew:

Yeah, and a really good story as well in terms of showing the impact In terms of from the principal perspective. Are there any opportunities that our leaders need to be aware of that you could share with us today through your role or through the sports unit?

James:

I guess, I think there's an opportunity really to think about the role that sport and physical activity plays in schools and why do we do it, why do we have the policy? And I think Michael touched on well, we have 150 minutes. He touched on students not being active enough and the role of sport and I think you know, I guess, what we're really I guess arguing or trying to convince people is really sport is a well-being activity.

Drew:

you know, primarily that's what it's there for sure is well-being is pivotal to our associations, one of our key values actually through the association, and we really like some of those topics that were discussed. I'm sure people listening in would maybe engage in those, those mini breaks, so to speak, and the research and evidence shows that it has a positive impact on student wellbeing, but I imagine it would be whole school wellbeing as well if implemented successfully.

James:

Yeah, absolutely, and I think there's an opportunity there to use, you know, sport.

James:

It's universal, you know, use it as a whole school wellbeing approach, something that can affect every student in the school and, like you've touched on previously, staff members too, and certainly the research is very strong in this area.

James:

And look, I think, like traditionally, how we've marketed, like, if we can say that like particularly the health promotion people have marketed sport or being active, particularly to kids, they sort of talk a lot around, you know, preventing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis and cancer and things like this, and this is really, I think, irrelevant to school teachers.

James:

It's sort of we sort of say it's like time delay, these are things that are going to affect us in the future or affect kids in the future maybe. And there's, they're intangible, they're things that you know, you can't touch and feel, you don't understand, and it's, and really I think, promoted in this way as being detrimental. But now we know there's so much more research around those immediate, short-term benefits that students can benefit from, and I think that teachers can having the students in their classroom as well, and so we're sort of seeing a lot in the research around the effect of sport and physical activity, particularly particularly on the brain, and this is an area of research that's just jumped dramatically in the last 10, 20 years. It's an area that I'm really passionate about and really interested in in my role, so I sort of do a lot of reading on this.

Drew:

So what are the benefits? If you can elaborate further, what are those benefits to brain health and from physical activity?

James:

Yeah, well, I mean, certainly what we know is that being active changes our brain, and so there's one study where they look at, you know granted, it was in older adults, and this is where I guess a lot of that brain research happens, particularly as we're trying to prevent or find cures for dementia but what they found was that if they had two groups, you know the active group and the inactive group, or they gave some physical activity to it was a one-year period and actually saw that the hippocampus increased by around. The increase was 2% change. Essentially, the group who were doing the physical activity, theirs increased and the people who didn't do the physical activity decreased. So it's basically a 2% difference in hippocampus size. What does this mean? Well, what's the hippocampus for those who didn't study science at university or maybe have forgotten, which is fair Memory formation, I think this is pretty important for, or interesting for, teachers Spatial navigation and emotional regulation, so, and that's just exercise, that's, that's one of the effects that it has. We're also, I guess, there's a lot of questions like why or how does this happen?

James:

And the big all the research at the moment is really looking at this. It's like an enzyme. An enzyme in the brain is called bdnf and this is what helps our brains grow. And what we see is you know mostly this these studies are done in rats, okay, which you know there's. There's some limited transfer there or we don't know but basically, if we do any bout of activity, this bdnf just shoots through the roof. It really increases bdnf, helps brain cells grow. I mentioned that it fights stress and anxiety, improves mood, mood boosts learning and memory. That's what we see from that and we see this spike in BDNF when we exercise.

Drew:

So, colleagues, listening, thinking about and hearing this research just reassures that sport has a place in schools, in learning institutions, to support, as you've seen through that research supports learning, retain information.

James:

Yeah, well, I, I mean I can talk. There was this one really interesting study out of chicago actually, where they had students, they were struggling in their numeracy and they did a before school like some extra tuition for these students and for half of the group they before they did the extra tuition. They actually gave them some physical activity like fitness, really high intensity fitness boosts. It's fun and engaging. Then they had their numeracy lesson, their additional one, and then they did their normal standardized test at the end of the term or their NAPLAN or something, and interestingly, in the kids who did the, they saw an increase in both. So the tuition really helped. But it was a 20.4% increase in the kids who had the physical activity versus a 3.87% in the kids who didn't have the physical activity.

James:

They repeat it, which is, I think, really interesting that you know this one thing alone. Now, this was a small study but you know, I think it's something you could test yourself really easily and we have seen this repeated through the systematic reviews and the meta-analysis all says that physical activity. There's a link there between physical activity and learning. This one was really interesting because they repeated it. They they did a similar thing where they had the tuition group in the morning but then they put the physical activity in the afternoon. Or maybe it's the other way around they put the physical activity in the morning and the physical, then the tuition, in the afternoon, I think, and they didn't see the same effects.

James:

So I think what we're really seeing and this is what Michael touched on earlier is that the timeliness of the physical activity, that if we do it just before, say, we want to learn something new, or just before our lessons at the start of the day, we can call them like a spark activity, it really, really gets kids ready to learn, and that could be those changes in mood, it could be those increases in BDNF, or even just the blood flow to the brain, the oxygen that goes to the brain. So what we know is that just physical activity on its own prepares us to learn, prepares kids to learn.

Drew:

And it's great to hear those studies, even though the sets are coming from different elder generation. I heard Also I heard something to do with rats. Potentially, but it justifies or just backs in the impact, and that's exactly, I guess, where in the world we are in education, educational leaders look at evidence-based research to show the impact. So if colleagues are listening to this, this is really fascinating. Is there any? Where can we point them to find further information about this?

James:

Look, I mean, I'm happy to you know where can they find? I mean, certainly there's a lot of academic literature out there. We do have some literature reviews available as a part of our health check package of resources. I'm also happy to you know, to speak about this to anyone, anyone that will listen, or anytime. I'm happy you give me an audience and I'll speak to them, but certainly it's linked in with our health check and the work that we're doing around that.

Drew:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and it's great to hear that you're so passionate about sharing, sharing the research and sharing the impact for our listeners, our, our educational leaders, our, our principals, listening. Are there any, any, any further tips or advice that you could, you were able to share with us today?

James:

well, I guess you know I can expand. You know, michael briefly spoke about the health check and sort of mentioned that and and fundamentally what that does, or what that, how we that came about, I think might be people might be interested to know.

Peter:

So essentially, what was you know?

James:

we're arguing, well-being is a priority for all schools. We know that that's, that's a given. You know, I've sort of given some small examples of how physical activity can be, can improve well-being, academic achievement. You know, we can talk mental health, we can talk mood, we can talk connectedness. So, without a doubt, there's a link there between sport, physical activity and well-being, a strong link, I would say so, like I've sort of said, well, we could argue that well-being is a sorry. The sport is a well-being strategy. So if sport and physical activity is a wellbeing strategy, okay, that's great. What do we do about it? What do we do in schools? How do we make a difference? This is where the health check comes in, and I think that people will want to know that it's based, that there's an evidence base behind it, and so it's based on the comprehensive approach to sport and physical activity which comes out of the CDC in America, which we all became very familiar with through COVID. They were given a lot of advice around COVID, but they do other things as well, not just communicable diseases, and essentially what they say is if you want to increase sport and physical activity in schools, there are five things that you should do. You should. Policy is number one. It's got to be written down, there's got to be a plan for it.

James:

Michael sort of touched on the 150 minutes. Quality sport again Michael touched around the strategies that we can do to improve the quality of sport and PE. It's not just a matter of doing it, it's a matter of the quality of it. Physical activity across the school day that's the third thing and Michael gave a lot of examples there around the 10 at 10s and that immediate benefit was there around the 10 at 10s and that immediate benefit. And really what this is saying is that we need to move. You know we're designed to move every day. We need to move every day, not just during sport time at the end of the week or our PE lessons.

James:

The fourth one is family and community engagement. So essentially, if we can get kids active at school, that's great. But what are the links outside of school? How can we help get our families involved or our communities involved? So, links to community sport we know that that happens a lot in schools. You know they're creating and finding those links for students.

James:

And then staff involvement again, michael spoke about this a lot. You know our staff are really important role models for students, and so I guess how they talk about sport and physical activity really is important. It rubs off on the kids and, essentially, those five things. That's what this, the, the comprehensive approach, says. You do those five things and you're going to be increasing sport and physical activity, which we could say well, you're going to be increasing well-being, you could argue.

James:

That's where the health check then comes in. It's basically then based on those five things, but for new south wales schools. So it's a self-assessment based on those five things to see where's our school at what could, and give some ideas of what we could be doing better. It's a self-assessment. It's not an audit. Somebody called it that the other day, which was really interesting. It's not about us saying this is what you have to do. It's about schools, I guess, being empowered to reflect, see what they're doing really really well, which good, and what are the areas where they can improve in order to make a difference in terms of student wellbeing.

Drew:

Yeah, and it's a good starting point that you said. And then the work is after those. They've done the snapshot, not the audit, the snapshot. And then where to what if they do find which inevitably they should, which is part of that process where to go from there. So they found gaps in this process where to from here.

James:

Yeah, and again, this is what I think we pride ourselves on the support. Come to us, ask us, you know, or certainly go to the teacher resource hub that Michael spoke about. Everything in there is really based on the health check. It's based on providing support for schools where there are these potential gaps. So physical activity across the school day, quality sport and PE. There's a lot of resources there, but I guess we don't need people to guess. Come and speak to us and we can give advice and support on those next steps and because it's going to look different in every school, so we can tailor that depending on your school context and what you might need. But I guess if you don't ask, you don't receive. So come to us and that's what we're here for. I'm sure that Banksy said this earlier. We only exist to support schools. You've got the tools and the resources are there, but please come to us and and we'd be happy to support however we can.

Drew:

Well, that sounded like a challenge there. So for those listening in and you've done that process, you've done the, not the audit, what is it again?

James:

James. The full title is the Sport and Physical Activity School Health Check.

Drew:

Yeah, so you've completed that task. That's the challenge after that is, you've done your gap, or your gap analysis, so to speak. Then you can then access all of the resources through the sports unit and james is more than willing and able, through his team, to be able to support you through that process. So look, fantastic initiatives backed again, which is backed in by evidence and research to show the impact of that, and it's all about what I heard in the messaging through you, james is wellbeing. Wellbeing is coming through so strongly through the sports unit. So thank you again for sharing all of the absolute pleasure. Terrific to have you with us today. That is James Boyer, sport and Physical Activity Coordinator of the Art and Sport Initiative. So thank you again for joining us, thank you. Our next guest in this podcast series is Peter Carty. Peter is the Athletics Convenor for the New South Wales School Sports Unit.

Peter:

Thanks, Drew. My name's Peter Carty and I'm from the School Sport Unit.

Drew:

Fantastic Welcome, Peter, to our podcast. It's great for you to be with us today. Thanks, Drew Thanks for having me Absolute pleasure. Now, Peter, can you tell our listeners what your role is in the Sports Unit?

Peter:

Yeah, Drew, my job with the Sports Unit is a disability and inclusion officer, so I work alongside Anthony Moyes and the two of us support schools across the entire state helping get students involved in sport for students with disability.

Drew:

Yeah, what a fantastic initiative and I'm sure you've got some, some great stories to be able to share. But in terms of that role, can you unpack a little bit further? What does that role entail?

Peter:

Yeah, my role is really helping schools get students with disability involved in sport through different pathways, both in our participation opportunities and in the representative pathway. Anthony, I think, is jumping on a bit later. He'll probably go into more of the participation opportunities we offer for schools, but today I'm happy to talk about the representative pathway and getting students involved in those sports of swimming, cross-country athletics.

Drew:

Yeah, so from a principal perspective, their understanding about the what that pathway is. Could you unpack that a little bit today? What, what are the pathways for? I've got a talented student in my school. What are the pathways for that student to make those pathways into representation?

Peter:

Yeah, the representative pathways for swimming, cross-country athletics all begin back at the school level. The school carnival is really the first selection trial for students to work their way through to get to the state championships. So at a school level you'll run your school carnival and then from there the students progress on to zone or district, depending on where you are in the state, and then move through to the regional association. They then select the top three which advance to the state championships.

Drew:

Yeah, yeah, fantastic. So in terms of support for students and advice for principals, that pathway seems pretty straightforward. I mean, it's been going for quite a while now.

Peter:

Yeah, it's been going on for a long time. There's still always questions that pop up. Here at the sport unit, we get plenty of questions throughout the year about how things work. It could be from the rules of championships, different strokes, different events, the timing, how they all run. It could be how to put the program together. There's an array of different questions we get and we're happy to help it across the Pellipa Say and also the people in the sport unit. So I get quite a lot of questions in regards to athletics. Currently, I'm the New South Wales convener and therefore a lot of questions come to me in regards to how that runs, what the rules are and so forth.

Drew:

So, without putting you on the spot, were there any particular themes that do come through with from principals inquiring that they're getting grief from, or they just need further clarification on, or can you help me with this? I'm not quite sure. Do they need to meet a certain time zone?

Peter:

all those sort of questions pop up throughout the year and again, each zone, each association can set their own rules. We always guide people to the handbook to start with, so they follow the rules of athletics, and then we work back from there. So, depending on what the questions are, quite often questions pop up especially in regards to, say, high jump the rules around that, because what we run is our rules, follow world athletics, and we work back from there, where a lot of school students are involved in little a's on the weekend, so little athletics have slightly modified rules too.

Drew:

So there's that sort of clarification between, uh, how, the how the two blend together, I suppose yeah, I can imagine that would be some fielding calls that you get just not deliberate, but just saying another organisation does this, PSSA or the sports unit does this? What's the clarification here? And you've used high jump as an example.

Peter:

Yeah, and that happens quite often throughout the year how we do that. So we always refer back to the handbook that there is a guide black and white. We use that work back from there. Yeah, okay, that's uh, yeah, that's.

Drew:

I mean it's good advice in terms of just principals and schools always want to do the right thing, but it's also making sure they do the right thing. If they do the wrong thing inadvertently, hypothetically, what advice would you give to principals and leaders?

Peter:

admit the mistake and then, and then go forward yeah, you just got to work your way back through it. Like any other issue that may arise have a look at the situation, work out where it is and then work through it with the students and the family generally that's the main thing and try and work out where the issue is and work back from there. We're here to help. We've got advice there. There's lots of things we've dealt with in the past that we can advise with and assist people with, that's for sure.

Drew:

yeah now you also in your other title correct me if I'm wrong about inclusion with students. Am I correct in that or not yeah, can you tell us about that space? Because that's a huge, that's a hugely rewarding space, but also making sure, again, make principals delivering that correctly in their school context and beyond yeah, I'll talk in talk in regards to the representative pathway with that.

Peter:

So inside swimming, cross-country and athletics, we have a pathway there called multi-class, and it's basically simplified for multiple classifications competing together. So it's our version of the Paralympics, if you like, it's a school sport version of that. So to be involved in that students need to go and get a formal sporting classification. Now there's five categories overarching it. They are deaf and hard of hearing, vision impairment, transplant recipients.

Peter:

We have physical impairments, which range from students in wheelchairs, students with cerebral palsy, amputee, short stature covers quite a broad range. And then our fifth arm of that is the intellectual impairments, and within that we have intellectual impairment for IQ, so an IQ of 75 or below. We have more significant impairments such as Down syndrome, and then the third part of that is autism. But I must stress, autism is only recognised in swimming, not in cross-country athletics, only in swimming at the moment. So they're the sort of areas we cover within the multi-class or the classification system. Now for students to get involved in that, they need to get a formal classification. To do that is reasonably simple. It's a case of one page of personal documents, so name, address, date of birth and those sorts of things and then adding to it a medical certificate or a medical paperwork to say what the impairment is and be clarified by a doctor, paediatrician, specialist and so forth. Okay, yeah, and we're here to help with those sorts of things. We get plenty of questions of those.

Drew:

Okay, so the pathway I'm imagining would be very similar. They participate in their normal local school athletics, carnival, swimming, carnival, cross-country, and then they move forward Like in the standard system. They're just part of that inclusive nature.

Peter:

Yeah, drew, that's exactly right. It's exactly the same pathway. So at a school level you mainly have one or two students classified. They get in, they run, they race, they swim, whatever it might be, but then they get awarded first, second, third in multi-class and we celebrate that at a school level. Moving forward to zone, hopefully there's a few more kids then classified. The competition gets a bit stronger, but again, the top winners, the people who place them, move forward to the regional association. Now we've seen huge growth across this in the last few years across the entire state. Most associations now are sending two, three athletes in every event towards the state championships. So a couple of weeks ago at the state championships we had 192 multi-class athletes competing, which was a record for us, and we took 50 of those students off to the national championships just last week, which was a record for us, and we took 50 of those students off to the national championships just last week. So there's quite a growth in multi-class athletes coming from all across the state.

Drew:

Yeah, and I'm sure behind those 192 students there's some really successful or some really great stories behind that.

Peter:

Oh look, Drew, I'm in the seat. I am now because of that. I had a young girl when I was teaching back in Year 5, Sophie, and she was an amputee, a missing part of her arm, so she had a short limb on her right arm. Sophie loved sport but was always shy and scared to get involved, wasn't quite sure she could do the whole thing, wore a jumper all day, every day, covered her arm up, Worked with mum and dad, got her classified. She then went off to cross country, off to swimming, off to athletics, all the way through to state level. Changed all the way through to state level. Changed her whole personality. She became more confident, she became more outgoing. She had that jumper off and she was out there playing sports. So thanks to Sophie I've learned so much to do with classification. I've taken that through now to my role and helping other kids get involved.

Drew:

Yeah what a great story. And there's plenty I'm sure plenty of Sophies out there with similar experiences and really we're talking I say this lightly, but and really we're talking I say this lightly, but really life-changing stuff isn't it?

Peter:

Oh, it certainly is. It really is amazing, drew, to see these students how they change, their confidence grows. But it's not just them, it's also other kids in the school and the school community. They start to become aware of these students. They don't just see them as the person with a disability, they see them as a peer and role models for some of them. And if they go and they have a whole new sense of life and a whole new awareness of that person within the school. And we find that once one child's classified, it snowballs. More and more students within the school start being recognised with their impairments and get classified and jump on the bandwagon. So it's great to see so many students now really getting involved and celebrating their sporting achievements.

Drew:

Wow, that's fantastic. How long has the program been running for now?

Peter:

Oh, maldi Class has been around for quite a long time. It's just, thankfully, with our roles now, anthony and myself, we've been able to promote that and there's finally someone out there now that can actually promote that for schools. So we've become a bit of a one-stop shop to help schools with that. All that information can be found on our website. We're only a phone call away. It's so simple to follow and get kids classified. It's a no-brainer really, just jump on board and get kids going.

Drew:

Yeah, that's terrific and it's great, I would say, leading the country in that space. So congratulations to the sport unit on doing that. That's terrific In terms of from a principal going back to the principal perspective, navigating through that. I'd imagine risk assessments would be a theme that could potentially come through, or what are the main themes you're seeing in that space?

Peter:

In that space. Really, for us it's just awareness or a lack thereof. We find a lot of principals, a lot of schools staff there are unsure. It's a case of you don't need to know until you need to know. And once people start identifying these students and realise there's students there, we're here to help them to get it done. And it's amazing the amount of principals and schools that have jumped on board once they know there's this pathway there, that they really jump to it and get involved. So a great starting point is back at your schools, talking to your school counsellor and your last team and having a chat with them about which students have we got in school who have an impairment? What are those disability types? Are they eligible for classification? And they're quite often the phone calls we get. We've got these students in our support class or in our mainstream classes. How can we help them get classified and get them involved?

Drew:

Yeah, really good advice. Fantastic Looking forward to 2025, what are the highlights, though, in 2024 that you could elaborate further on Anything that comes to mind.

Peter:

Oh, there's so many highlights in this space. I just love the opportunity to do it. Like I say, 192 students this year at the state championships was a great highlight for us in the multi-class space. But we had a team of 180 athletes, able-bodied and multi-class go to the state championships. You've caught me off guard. I don't have my figures with it, but we came in with a bag of medals, that's for sure. So school sport is certainly strong in New South Wales. In our primary schools. The talent is there and it's just amazing to see so many students really shining and flying our flag high across the state.

Drew:

Yeah, what's the highlight that you're looking forward?

Peter:

to. I'd really like to see the multi-class continue to grow. We've really Sydney's been great. The regional base has been great the Hunter, south Coast but really seeing those regional areas Riverina, western, north, west North Coast really build their numbers has been great. We look forward to helping them expand and continue growing. And ultimately, I think some of the highlights for us this year was seeing some of our past athletes, like Talia Blacksmith, who competed at State. She was at the Paralympics this year competing in the 400 meters. I think it wasn't a long jump. So to see our past athletes go onto the international stage is is certainly a big highlight and look forward to seeing more of those come in the years to come Well, peter, thank you.

Drew:

I can. I can feel the enthusiasm and the passion and the moral imperative of the work. So thank you, thank you to your work and thank you to the sports unit for what they're doing to support students in athletics as well as ensuring inclusive education is coming through the sports unit. So thank you, thanks, drew, appreciate your time. Cheers Well. That concludes part three of our four-part series. There are so many good takeaways. Thanks again to James Boyer and Peter Carty. Our next guest in this final podcast series is with Lisette King and Dr Sylvia Corish. Lisette King is a sport policy advisor attached to the New South Wales School Sport Unit and she's also part of the Arts Initiative for the New South Wales Department of Education. And our final guest in this podcast series is Dr Sylvia Corish, who will summarise and synthesise the key messages and wisdom from all of our guests. Dr Sylvia Corish is the Executive Director of Student Support and Specialist Programs, which includes the New South Wales Department of Education Sports Unit. So we look forward to your company in our next and final episode.

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