St Mary's School is located on Auckland's North Shore. The school is an integrated, Catholic school for boys and girls from Years 0-6, and girls only for Years 7 and 8.

St. Mary's School prides itself on their unique school Charism of Unity, Respect and Compassion. St Mary's promote the education of the whole person and encourage each student in the pursuit of personal excellence. St Mary's supports a culture of sport, health and wellness. Students participate in a variety of sporting activities.

Recently, the school identified an opportunity to ensure that the school's values were also fully integrated and aligned with their sporting and coaching culture. Under the leadership of Adrienne Faulkner (Sports Coordinator, Health and PE Curriculum Leader), St. Mary's took a courageous step toward improving the culture of sport and coaching after evidence highlighted the need to implement an athlete-centred approach to sport, similar to the values based learning approaches being used in the school's classroom teaching.

Adrienne carefully planned a process to engage with the student community to seek feedback on what students considered were important aspects of a quality sporting experience and more specifically what they were looking for in a great coach.

Adrienne was supported by the school principal Mr Paul Engles, and Janet Yelas the Director of Curriculum, and the key strategies for change were implemented.

Adrienne possesses a strong passion to ensure that the needs of the students are a priority and has the courage and inspiration to influence positive change.

Continues after the video.

The Students' Voice

Adrienne utilised a powerful process of empowerment to gain a greater awareness of what students needed from their coach and sporting experience. A focus group method was conducted with a purposive group of student representatives from Years 1-8, this group included a cross section of sports and cultures. Adrienne used a creative scenario-based approach to elicit feedback from the focus group. The scenarios were carefully planned to ensure no bias or leading questions were used in the feedback process. A range of thinking tools and strategies were presented to the group in order to get a range of responses.

Brain storming and the recording of feedback together with questioning for understanding.

The Scenarios

• "How can your coach make your practices and games a safe and fun environment?"
• What does this look like, sound like and feel like?
• What are the reasons you join a sports team?
• Winning philosophy vs a philosophy of winning

Findings

The Years 2-8 children were articulate in their understanding of several questions. The following quotes are responses from the children when asked:

"What is "winning" to you?

• "That I tried my hardest"
• "Being a good sport"
• "Keeping on trying"
• "I played my best"
• "You can lose but still win"
• "It matters to win, but only if it's been fair"
• "I played with confidence"

"Should every player get a fair turn?"

• "Yes, even if you're going to lose"
• "Yes, because you're there to have fun."
• "The rest of the team are all there for each other."
• "Yes, you could still win"
• "Just about fun - we're only 10"
• "Yes, it's not the Silver Ferns"
• "Yes, otherwise the subs wouldn't get to share in the glory"
• "Yes - turns, is fun"
• "You could give them the choice"
• "Not if it was to win the championship."

After the children identified aspects of importance they were then asked to place their need on the court where it fit best, i.e., "A Philosophy of Winning" v's "A Winning Philosophy".

The children felt that the most important needs in their sporting environment were fairness and fun.

The Recommendations

Because the results of this project were so powerful and students were so clear about their needs, St Mary's have developed a new culture for sport which is drawn from the children and how they live their school Charism of Unity, Respect and Compassion.

The new programme which has been endorsed by the school principal will come into effect in 2015. Every teacher in charge of sport and each coach at St. Mary's will participate in an induction programme where the student centred programme will be presented. The expectation is that all personnel involved will fully embrace and support the programme.

Adrienne's advice to other leaders wanting to influence change or improve their sporting environment is to talk to the children, and utilise experts and support available in your region, such as the RST or Tertiary institutions. In St Mary's case that included the Coach Support Initiative, GACU and AUT.

Consider how a refined sporting culture can also influence how you teach PE, and through adventure-based learning programmes the students can develop their movement competency, skill development, team work and enjoyment.