Students’ involvement in Physical Education ranges from individual, non-competitive movement activities through to competitive team games. We want all students to develop physical literacy, which involves improving physical skills and fitness, understanding attitudes and emotions that motivate them to be active, knowledge and understanding of how, why and when they move and exhibiting the social skills to be active with others.

Emphasis in Physical Education is placed upon students developing fundamental motor skills (FMS) and game sense to improve individual and team performance. Students’ progress from the development of FMS to the performance of complex movement patterns that form part of team games. They learn how developing physical capacity in areas such as strength, flexibility and endurance is related to both fitness and physical ability. Students’ progress from learning simple rules and procedures to enable them to participate in movement and physical activity safely, to using more complex equipment confidently, co-operating with their peers and creatively developing their own rules and games.

Programs include:

• Weekly Physical Education sessions for all students
• Weekly year level sport session with class teachers
• Perceptual Motor Program (PMP) for Prep students (Term 1 & 2) during Physical Education sessions
• Annual House Cross Country Competition (Years 3 to 6)
• Mordialloc District Inter-school Sports (Years 5 & 6)
• Annual whole school House Athletics Carnival (Term 3)
• Two-week intensive swimming program for all children (Term 4)
• District Swimming team selection trials & House Swimming Carnival (Term 1 – Year 3-6)
• Membership of a school sporting house - Nepean (Yellow), Balcombe (Green), Como (Red) & Warrigal (Yellow).

Excellent facilities include:

• Synthetic grass sports field and athletics track
• Multi-purpose indoor venue for rainy or high UV days
• Synthetic Basketball/Netball court, including line markings for volleyball and Hot Shots Tennis
• Sporting equipment hire program for student use during recess and lunch times.

SSV Mordialloc District Inter-School Sport

Mentone Primary School is a member of the Mordialloc District, which includes 10 other schools in our local area and falls under the banner of School Sport Victoria. As such we are subject to SSV rules and regulations when competing in sports and competitions. Our sport philosophy is for all students to develop sport specific skills and game sense across a range of different sports. Also to maximise participation opportunities (where practical and possible) for students to apply these skills in competitive situations that are appropriate to their level of development, whilst maintaining the principles of sportsmanship and fun.

All students in Year 3-6 are offered the opportunity to trial and qualify for the District Swimming, Cross-Country and Athletics competitions each year. Year 5 and 6 students also participate in weekly District summer and winter Inter-school sport on Friday mornings in Term 1 and 2. Summer sports include: Hot Shots Tennis, Cricket Blast, Fully Loaded Softball, Volleystars & Volleyball. Winter sports include AFL 9v9, Football, Soccer, Tee-Ball and Netball.

Perceptual Motor Program (P.M.P)

Prep students enjoy participating in our school’s Perceptual Motor Program (PMP) during their weekly Physical Education lesson. The program develops gross and fine motor skills, balance, spatial and directional awareness, communication and appropriate behaviours. In each lesson, small groups of students rotate around four different activities with a leader at each station to guide them. The activities include fundamental motor skills of throwing and catching balls, running, jumping etc.  Additional activities are dancing, skipping and obstacle courses. Building their physical confidence.

Bike Education

Bike Education aims to educate students in Years 4-6 in cycling skills, road safety and traffic knowledge. Each student brings a roadworthy bicycle and helmet to school to participate in the program. Students ride their bike in the school ground practising steering, balance and stopping. They are also taught the traffic skills of positioning, scanning and signalling. When competent, students ride on local streets around the school. Senior students ride to Chelsea (Year 6) and Black Rock (Year 5) and back to further develop their traffic and endurance skills. Students also complete a traffic theory component to further their understanding of road rules, road signage, hazard identification and basic bicycle maintenance.  

Swimming

Each student participates in an intensive two week learn to swim program each year at BluFit Swimming Sandringham, with a focus on stroke development and correction, water safety and confidence. This is complemented by a concurrent Advanced Biomechanics Swimming program offered to our senior students (Year 3-6) at Mentone Aquatic to extend and challenge our strongest swimmers. We also hold a House Swimming carnival in Term 1 each year, which is an optional activity for Year 3-6. This also acts as trials for our District Swimming team.