School children are seeking a more diverse curriculum when it comes to their physical education classes at school as well as better facilities that can be used throughout the year and not hampered by seasonal conditions.

This was one of the main outcomes of a recent dissemination meeting hosted in Malta as part of the Diypes Project, a two-year Erasmus+Sport project started in 2017, with the aim to find a participative approach to increase participation and engagement of high school students in physical education and sport classes.

The project was jointly implemented in five partner countries - Albania, Italy, Malta, Romania and Slovakia and achieved some fruitful results based on partner national PE curriculum research and analysis, intervention activities and feedbacks on both good practices and challenges.

Foundation for the Promotion of Social Inclusion in Malta (Fopsim) is the project partner in the country.

“One of the most pressing challenges hindering better outcomes of the PE curriculum included the cultural and family mindset viewing PE as a ‘not so important and useful subject'.

"Most parents tend to put pressure on students to achieve more in the rest of the subjects diminishing the role of PE to a basic extra-curricular discipline,” said Uyen Vu, project officer of Diypes.

“Overall, we were very pleased to see a major involvement and enthusiasm from students participating in PE lessons who then contributed their opinions for the benefit of this project.

"Some of the findings concluded that the initial weeks of the school year are important for the PE teacher to build good relations with the students, that overweight students should be invited to participate in more activities during PE lessons, that marking the students’ performance should not only be limited to assessments but also through the progress they make in their PE lesson.

"Also, very interesting was the suggestion for more diverse sport activities during lunch breaks, more sports tournaments and more involvement from the parents in physical activities at school,” added Uyen Vu.

The Diypes project was particularly successful because it brought students, PE teachers and stakeholders together to discuss how best to tackle the current limitations in PE delivery and how to present sports activities in the most favourable way.

Malta was represented by three schools namely St Theresa College Secondary School in Mrieħel, St Edward's College in Birgu and St Thomas More, Middle and Secondary School in Żejtun.

The final meeting was also attended by policy makers, health sector practitioners, sports education persons, national athletes and local media.

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