Are you taking part in Outdoor Classroom Day? Healthiest schools challenge?

We’d like to see what you get up to! From bug-spotting, epic health challenges and cartography to mindfulness, art and more. Schools around the country are getting stuck in (the mud).

The global Outdoor Classroom Day kicks off November 1 as a great excuse to embrace the great outdoors as your classroom for the day. 53 New Zealand schools are participating so far and 2.3 million children took part last year, worldwide.

Schools can sign-up here:
outdoorclassroomday.com

Teachers who are new to outdoor learning might particularly love this campaign because you can use Outdoor Classroom Day to try it out. If you already integrate your lesson plans with the outdoors on a regular basis, use the day to celebrate what you’re doing and inspire other teachers around the world to join in.

Healthiest Schools Challenge hits a nerve: more than 57k participants so far!

The six-week New Zealand Healthiest Schools Challenge has been taken on by 500 schools around the country, plus friends and family members who have joined the Supporters’ Challenge.

AIA and Sovereign are backing the Challenge, which first ran in 2016. Staff from the two companies will this year be participating in their own version of the Challenge.

During the Healthiest Schools Challenge, participants are given fun tasks and simple tips on how to build healthy habits into their daily lives, as well as family routines, and classrooms. Children receive the tips as their customised avatars progress through a virtual tour of some of the world’s greatest sights, accompanied by digital versions of Challenge Ambassadors Cory Jane and Gemma McCaw.

Task topics include how to fit more activity into each day, healthy eating, limiting screen time, and sun safety. They encourage children and their families to make health and wellness an everyday habits.

Teaching resources

Teachers can find resources designed to help encourage their students to apply what they learn to their particular school environments via the Healthiest Schools Challenge blog (click here).

Once the Challenge is complete, a Challenge Ambassador will help deliver $50,000 worth of sports grants to those schools, selected through a draw, to help the students of those schools maintain their levels of activity.

The Challenge is also supported by a nationwide tour of two Tottenham Hotspurs International Development Coaches, who will be visiting schools as part of their role in encouraging young people around the Asia Pacific region to lead healthier lives. AIA is the lead sponsor of the English Premier League Tottenham Hotspurs Football Club.

Healthiest Schools Challenge Ambassador Cory Jane says that as the parent of four young children, and as a former All Black, he understands the importance of living well.

“We all know that good health and wellbeing are vital to getting the most out of life. But we need to teach our young people that these things aren’t a ‘sometimes’ thing. They’ve got to be part of our everyday lives, and that’s what the Healthiest Schools Challenge is all about; making health and wellbeing part of our routines – in a good way,” says Cory Jane.

The New Zealand’s Healthiest Schools Challenge runs until November 23 2018.