Belonging is essential to well-being, and well-being is essential to learning.
Providing opportunities for every student to participate in physical activity through intramurals can help students experience a sense of belonging in their school community. These opportunities are especially important for those students who are typically underserved, not physically active at school, and/or have little access to physical activity experiences beyond their school day. This increased sense of belonging can positively impact their overall well-being and learning.
The Play for All resource has been developed to provide educators with access to resources to enhance their capacity to implement inclusive, meaningful, safe, and fun intramural programming that meets the needs of every student in the school community.
Play for All includes:
- Guiding Principles to provide educators with a foundation to review, reflect on, and re-imagine an intramural program;
- Intramural Planning Resources:
- to support planning for physical and emotional safety;
- for centering and enhancing student voice, choice, and shared leadership;
- strategies for overcoming challenges and barriers to participation;
- tips for getting started; and,
- planning and evaluation tools;
- Inclusive Approaches: to consider when:
- designing intramurals that are accessible to every student;
- creating inclusive, equitable and positive spaces; and,
- adopting a collaborative leadership approach through student, whole school, and community engagement;
- Activities: curated for use in diverse intramural settings informed by:
- student interests, needs and developmental stage;
- available time, space, and equipment; and,
- the structure of the intramurals being offered; and,
- A Resource Database: a compilation of resources to provide educators with:
- additional tools to support the planning and facilitation of quality intramurals;
- links to partner resources; and,
- additional physical activities ideas.