School Spotlight: Ankeny Community School District

We love to give credit where credit is due! Check out Ankeny Community School District, featured in this quarter's newsletter, and all the positive things going on in their PE program. Keep it up Ankeny!

The mission of the Physical Education and Health programs is to empower each student to make informed decisions to lead healthy and active lifestyles. The secondary schools focus on individual fitness through many formats, and all of the schools are beginning to implement more outdoor education activities. The PE staff will also be starting an annual 5K run for the district next year.

Parkview Middle School (6th/7th grade) begins to introduce the students to the use of technology in PE. Some of the technology at Parkview includes the use of Polar Heart Rate Monitors, and vodcasting to create student lead exercise videos. Parkview focuses on individual lifetime fitness, team sports, and special activities. Many of the activities and team sports incorporate small sided games. Fitness testing is analyzed to drive instruction throughout the year, and used by students to set personal goals. Students attend Health and PE on opposite days.

Northview Middle School (8th/9th grade) has a unique programming style where health and physical education are integrated in an 84 minute block of time every other day. Our students continue the use of the heart rate monitors that were introduced to them at Parkview. Northview also uses the tri-fit system to obtain data on the specific fitness needs of our students and when students leave Northview they receive a report with their two year fitness results. Northview offers our students a variety of activity choices. Every four weeks our students are allowed to choose the activities they would like to participate in for the rotation. This allows our students to have some ownership in their fitness choices and allows them to find activities that they may choose to do for a lifetime. Our goal for our program is to continue to add new activities to our program and integrate our health and physical education curriculum in order to continue to give our students a broad spectrum of skills.

The Ankeny High School Physical Education Program provides for the varying needs of students through curriculum that offers a variety of choices of physical activities. All students must take one of the four PE offerings both semesters of all three years enrolled at the high school level. Offering a variety of activities creates opportunities for exposure to various lifetime activities and sports. The curriculum is designed to promote the development of physical and mental health in addition to providing students with the knowledge and skills that lead to personal wellness. AHS Physical Education emphasizes the importance of establishing and maintaining personal fitness levels, improving interpersonal skills, and encouraging physical activity over a lifetime. Use of technology includes the Polar TriFit computer system as well as the implementation of Ecko Heart Rate Monitors. All students complete Fitnessgram physical fitness testing that helps guide our instruction.

Want your school’s PE program to be featured in our newsletter? Send a brief description of why your PE program deserves the spotlight to msheppard@pe4life.org.