Leitchville Primary School

The 2015 Gannawarra Walk to School program kicked off on Thursday 8^th October with an event held at the Leitchville Primary School. Children arrived at school excited to be greeted with a healthy breakfast of cereal, toast, fruit and milk.

 

 

 The event focused on the importance of Healthy and Active Living and following breakfast the 20 school students filed into the classroom where Cr. den Houting launched the new Gannawarra Ride2School media clip and encouraged all students to walk, ride, skate or scoot to school, not just throughout October, but all year round.
 
Coinciding with Mental Health Week, Cr. den Houting also spoke to the students about the 5 Ways to Wellbeing – Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning and Give and particularly how important it is to talk to friends, family and teachers about any concerns so that little problems don’t become big problems.
 

Leesa, a Dietician from Northern District Community Health, enthralled students with a display on the amount of sugar in common food and drinks. We read ingredient lists, food labels and weighed out the quantity of sugar in grams and converted this to teaspoons. We also looked at some of the tricky ways food is marketed to make products look like a healthy option so that we want to buy them. 

 

 

We also talked about good sugars, in fresh fruit for example, and not so good sugars in processed foods and drinks. Even though fruit contains natural sugar they provide lots of vitamins, minerals and fibre that help keep growing bodies healthy and strong.

LaTrobe University’s Dental Health School in Bendigo provided the sugar display as part of the Rural Engaging Communities in Oral Health project. Volunteer dentists from the Royal Flying Doctors Service visited Leitchville Primary School as part of this project earlier this year and were concerned at the amount of tooth decay they saw in children at primary schools and pre-schools across the Gannawarra Shire. 

Our discussion on the importance of choosing healthy foods and drinks was followed by a tooth-brushing demonstration and how children can look after their teeth – brushing twice a day with a soft toothbrush taking extra time to clean the molars at the back as well as gently brushing the gums. Toothbrush prizes were awarded as part of the demonstration.

We then learnt that laughter really is infectious as Glenda from the Gannawarra Library Service led us through a fun laughter yoga session outside. We did the monkey and the lawn mower with lots of loud Ha, Ha, Ho, Ho, Hos! adding to the excitement.

Laughter yoga made for a great warm-up for our walk around the town walking track with children collecting 5 Ways to Wellbeing stamps on their ‘walking passports’ as they went. 

 
Children then received a locally developed Walk to School bookmark and Walk to School ruler as constant reminders to walk, ride, skate or scoot to school.

Students are busy recording their walking activity on their Classroom Walking Calendars. Walks  to and from school, the school bus, or around a special circuit at school all count. Leitchville students know the benefits of filling in the calendars after winning to regional Walk to School prize in the 2014 Walk to School program. They enjoyed a personal soccer clinic with the Melbourne City Football Club as their reward.

 

 

Support from local businesses helps the Gannawarra VicHealth Walk to School program continue so a very big thank you to Border Packers Koondrook, Murray Milk, Rocky’s Fruit and Vegetables Cohuna, Woolworths Kerang, and Gray's Bakery Kerang for providing everything we needed for our healthy breakfast.

Walk your way to wellbeing – get to know your community, meet other people, take in some fresh air, and improve your health by walking everyday. So pull on your walking shoes, and get walking…..

The Gannawarra VicHealth Walk to School program is rolled out across the Gannawarra Shire as a Gannawarra Local Agency Meeting (GLAM) partnership project. This is a partnership between Gannawarra Shire Council, Northern District Community Health, Kerang District Health, Cohuna District Hospital, Mallee District Aboriginal Service, Victoria Police, with support from the Southern Mallee Primary Care Partnership.

Walk to School is a VicHealth initiative. For more information go to walktoschool.vic.gov.au.