Cobar students were rewarded for their commitment to staying fit and active with a visit from Australian hockey player, Ash Thomas last Wednesday.
Thomas was in Cobar to speak to students at Cobar High School (CHS) and Cobar Public School about the benefits of the Premier’s Sporting Challenge (PSC), which aims to promote physical activity among young people.
All 285 students as well as 39 staff at Cobar Public School participated in this year’s challenge, with 210 students and 45 staff at Cobar High School also taking part.
As a challenge ambassador, Thomas talked to the students about the importance of daily physical activity, healthy eating, playing sport, goal setting and resilience.
As a member of the NSW Waratahs 2017 team and having represented Australia at the World Cup, Thomas was well qualified to speak on the topic.
He has played 35 junior international games and is currently in the Australian Development Squad for the Commonwealth Games in 2018.
The PSC was established in 2008 to promote the importance of daily physical activity, not just for fitness but overall health and wellbeing.
In its first year in 2008, almost 74,000 students from 404 schools completed the Premier’s Sporting Challenge and now 10 years later, more than 1,600 schools, 380,000 students and 12,000 teachers took part in the challenge this year.
As part of the challenge, students keep records of their daily physical activity over 10 weeks and strive to achieve the recommended Australian Guidelines of 60 minutes per day.
CHS PD/H/PE teacher Alexandra Hernando said the school had a great response from students this year to join the challenge and they were looking forward to building up the challenge in the years to come.
