Sport for Life teams up with HeadStartPro
HeadStartPro Performance Training is a sports-education service provider dedicated to improving the health and longevity of athletes with accessible and affordable online courses.
HeadStartPro’s multi-sport approach and universal concepts make performance and injury prevention training available…
How to develop an Egyptian physical literacy curriculum
Mark Verbeek has never been satisfied with the status quo. For the past two decades he’s been a physical education teacher in Ontario, and repeatedly he’s found himself struggling to convince parents of the importance of physical literacy. He’s been met with resistance from those who believe in…
How do we ensure newcomer girls are engaged in sport and physical literacy?
When University of Manitoba researcher Simrit Deol first set out to investigate the barriers newcomer girls face when engaging with sport and physical literacy in Canada, there’s a particular phrase her subjects used to describe the status quo: “the same thing, the same machine”. Many of them faced…
Winnipeg researcher mobilizes Physical Literacy Environmental Assessment tool
Nathan Hall believes in the Physical Literacy Environmental Assessment tool, also known as PLEA. The associate professor at the University of Winnipeg has been researching physical literacy for years, and was one of the first users of the Sport for Life innovation. Now he’s using PLEA to compile data…
BC Hockey makes incremental Long-Term Athlete Development progress
When you’re first teaching children how to play hockey, it doesn’t make sense to use the entire rink. The kids aren’t ready for it yet, and it’s simply too big. That’s why BC Hockey began incrementally adapting their program to follow Hockey Canada’s Long-Term Athlete Development model, based…
Talking physical literacy and mental health with Dr. Guy Faulkner
Dr. Guy Faulkner is a professor of kinesiology at UBC who has long been fascinated by the link between physical activity and mental health. He is the founding editor of the academic journal Mental Health and Physical Activity, and often presents his findings to conferences worldwide. Recently he was…
Four questions with Greg Henhawk
Greg Henhawk is a Mohawk of the Bear Clan from Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation in Southern Ontario. He spent 32 years working as a secondary school teacher in Ontario before transitioning into his role as Manager of Indigenous Projects at Sport for Life. We sat down with Greg to talk about…
Canada Basketball invests in coach education
More and more Canadians are interested in basketball these days, which means there will be an increased demand for quality coaches in the years to come. With this in mind, Canada Basketball has spent the past two decades carefully developing a standardized coach education process based on Sport for Life’s…
Manitoba school gets physical literacy makeover
One rural Manitoba school is making physical literacy a priority for its students, installing both a 120’ Sensory Path and a rock-climbing wall in the past year. Principal Brandy Chevalier has received global recognition for the initiatives, which aim to get her students up and moving rather than spending…
Sport for Life director champions inclusion
Andrea Carey was already a champion for sport when she joined Sport for Life five years ago. She’d served on the Canadian Paralympic Committee board of directors, and had successfully introduced a culture of inclusion, physical literacy development and Long-Term Development (LTD) to the Pacific Institute…
Irish physical literacy researcher empowers girls with Gaelic sports program
A revolutionary Irish sports initiative custom-designed for young female participants has made a global splash, with researcher Orlagh Farmer sharing the successes of the fast-growing program Gaelic 4 Girls at this year’s International Physical Literacy Conference (IPLC) in Winnipeg. As far as she’s…
Gym blogger mobilizes physical literacy
It was three years ago that Ottawa physical education teacher David Benay decided something needed to change. He started delving into the physical literacy world, documenting his progress via a blog called Ottawa Gym Critic. Things escalated quickly from there.
“I was tired of playing traditional…