Walk past the door of Chris Kleinhans’ classroom at Ascot Community School and you may see children lifting chairs and counting. 

Or they may not be inside at all, they may be out on the field jumping like frogs, throwing and catching scraps of fabric, or tumbling and dancing while playing a round of People Are Awesome. 

Kleinhans, originally from South Africa, is a firm believer in the importance of making physical activity fun, and using it to teach other aspects of the school curriculum. 

But this hasn’t always been the case. The self-confessed sports junkie admits in his earlier teaching years he subscribed to the belief that focusing on the “superstars” of sport was the important aspect. Children who weren’t as skilled or talented could have a cursory attempt at the activity before being relegated to other jobs. But this had limited results. 

Using the mass participation approach, where everyone was forced to take part in an activity, also produced limited results. 

“When I was in my technical, very competitive phase, out of a hundred kids, maybe three, maybe four would go to the next level and then you would lose them. In my mass participation phase you would force everybody and 50 of the 100 would hate it and they would literally do it because they were being forced and then they wouldn’t want to do it anymore.” 

But after moving to New Zealand to take up a teaching position at Ascot Community School, Kleinhans started working with Sport Southland’s Made to Move team, and from there his thinking started to change. 

The Made to Move team works alongside schools and their surrounding communities to ensure children have quality physical activity opportunities in and outside school time. School Facilitators support primary schools to strengthen their own wellbeing culture through physical activity, while Community Facilitators develop and grow connections in and around schools and their communities. 

“The whole thinking started to change, and I thought if I want kids to move, I have to be a bit smarter, I have to be creative…how can I get them to move?” Kleinhans said. 

He decided to make moving fun. 

Which is where the chair lifts come in – the children lift chairs while counting. Throwing and catching the fabric helps their fine motor skills, jumping like frogs makes physical activity fun for even the most ardent opposer. 

“If we can get that instilled in the kids, that it’s fun to move, that it’s better than sitting in front of the tv, maybe somewhere down the line you’ll see a kid that’s an All Black or plays for any senior team and think ’15 years ago that kid was in my class and he would just sit, he didn’t want to do anything, and I got him to move’.” 

Working with the Made to Move team had made a huge difference to his way of thinking, he said. 

“The whole way of thinking makes sense to me.” 

Article added: Tuesday 03 March 2020