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Keep Shine for St Ursula's E-Act Academy PE Lessons
The parents, relatives, carers and friends of children at St Ursula's E-Act Academy, Bristol wish the reinstatement of Shine for PE lessons for all key stages.
Why is this important?
Shine offer professional coaching in a variety of sports that children may not be able to access ordinarily. The coaches provide positive role models that children are very comfortable with and they offer an alternative to parents and teachers in this respect in children's lives. They make engaging in physical exercise fun and achievable for all.
The school believe that an internal coach facilitating sport through class teachers offers an effective, cost cutting solution in times of educational economic austerity. However we believe that the move will be to the detriment of our children's enthusiasm for sport, that they will be less active overall as they will not be as encouraged to join in physical activities outside of school, the range of different sporting activities available to them will decrease and the level of sporting prowess that many of the children currently possess (as demonstrated by St Ursula's achievements in inter-school matches and tournaments) will decline. In a world that promotes physical exercise as healthy this move suggests that E-Act do not hold physical educational as important as other aspects of the curriculum.
Whilst the parents understand the need for the school to future-proof against the closure of the community hall and therefore the loss of Shine from the neighbouring building, the parents have long understood (as promoted by the school themselves in previous academic years) that Shine would operate from within the new school. The possible community hall closure has not yet been decided upon and even if that were to happen Shine would be on-site to continue their activities if what parents were previously led to believe is correct.
Many parents selected St Ursula's as their child's primary school because of the close association between the school and Shine. E-Act are correct when they say that E-Act and Shine are two separate business organisations. However E-Act have, as recently as the autumn of 2016, used the association that exist between the two to promote their school. Many parents, on hearing that Shine will not be teaching PE to at least one key stage, feel that they have been mis-sold the school.
