Strategy: Community Tournament
Bell State School was one of nine 10,000 Steps Community Grant recipients awarded funding for the implementation of 10,000 Steps Community Strategies in 2017. Bell State School conducted a Community Tournament, involving school staff, students, parents and community members as a part of their wellbeing plan.
Background
Bell State School is a small, rural school with rich community connections located in the Darling Downs region in South West Queensland. Bell State School applied for the 10,000 Steps Community Grant to encourage physical activity and wellbeing amongst the community of Bell.
Implementation
- Bell State School had conducted a 10,000 Steps Tournament within the staff previously and wanted to extend the initiative to the wider community.
- The Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Venues Tournament started on the 9th of October and was completed on the 6th of November.
- The grant supported the purchase of 130 pedometers which were provided to participants (8 teams of 13 participants) at the start of Term 3.
- Weekly updates were provided to participants through Facebook, the school website and weekly newsletter to keep the community up to date.
Outcomes
- More people were observed walking around town and more lap swimmers at the pool. Staff, parents and students at school were walking more and doing laps on the oval to get their steps up.
- The Tournament encouraged discussion, friendly banter, brought the school community closer and increased awareness of physical activity levels.
- More conversations occurred around levels of physical activity and how much physical activity people do or don’t do.
“It was a fun Tournament that encouraged friendly banter, brought our school closer to our community and made everyone more aware of how much walking they actually do.”
Lessons Learnt
- Larger teams were created during this tournament to keep the timeframe fairly short (between 3 – 4 weeks). However in the future, smaller/family teams will be trialled to encourage the members to support eachother in logging their steps regularly.