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Donna Hartley Olympic Athlete Visits Macclesfield High School As Part Of National School Sport Week

Macclesfield High School was pleased to welcome Donna Hartley to school on Monday.  She is a 400m Gold Medallist (1980 Olympics).  Donna showed her medals to the students, made a 15-minute presentation on the benefits of healthy eating and exercise, and then subjected them to a 20-25 minute keep fit session!  All in all, she guaranteed an excellent start to the school’s Healthy Living Week which ran from 29th June to 3rd July.                    

The aim of National School Sport Week was to raise awareness about what makes people “healthy” and events were organised around the Olympic theme.   In lessons, the students examined the whole area of Health from different perspectives.  Does health really matter was question number one. The figures tell the story...

• 30% of children are overweight
• 58% of adults in the UK are overweight
• 1.5 miles is the average car journey to school
• 20 hours is the average time children spend on the internet per week

During lunch times and after school, students had an opportunity to take part in a number of clubs that were fun and enjoyable.  Other activities included swimming, biking, climbing, trampolining, etc.   The week provided a fun-packed opportunity for all students to become involved, and all students were asked to make pledges as to what they aimed to achieve during the week.  These included:

• to try at least one new sport;
• to encourage others to take part in sport;
• to walk to school each day;
• to eat healthy food for a week.

Over 900 pledges were received and students asked parents, brothers, sisters and grandparents to make pledges as well, making this a family event too.

Amongst all this activity, Macclesfield High School managed to fit in its Sports Day on Wednesday and also its annual Walk to School Week which encourages students to walk to school and experience the benefits of regular exercise.

29.6.09