Fern Avenue Extracurricular Sports Update
Hi Everyone,
It's great to see our students back participating in extracurricular sports after a long pause due to the pandemic. Although not back to our full spectrum of sports in the TDSB, we were able to provide options for our students that have been excited to finally be able to play for fun or have some competition in team sports or athletic events.
Our soccer house league for our seniors was a huge success with over 80 of our students of various levels of play participating. Each cohort of classes played 5 games and a few rounds of playoffs. Most of the games were really close and offered a lot of excitement. Our students demonstrated great team spirit and there were many memories made with celebrations from wonderful goals, great defensive plays, and goalie stops! Our five week league ended with a very exciting final between cohorts 308 and 300. The final had both teams leading in score throughout the game and a dramatic overtime, with cohort 300 scoring the winning goal and being awarded the prize of a team picture with the Fern gold cup! Thanks to all the teachers that helped organize and run the soccer house league.
In the past two weeks our senior soccer teams also participated in tournaments. The girls soccer team played against Dovercourt and Annette public schools. The Fern girls played really well, winning both games convincingly and without getting scored on. Our senior boys also did really well and won both of their games against Parkdale and Jean Lumb. Our soccer teams looked good enough in their games to have challenged for city finals this year, but unfortunately due to covid safety there will not be any more rounds as decided by public health and TDSB. Our students showed great motivation and school spirit in their tournaments. They demonstrated a greatly improved skill level transferred on to the pitch from regular practices. Most importantly though, they had fun with extracurricular sports, something greatly missed from online schooling.
Our senior students also had the opportunity to participate in cross country with the Fern running club. Our students trained at school and competed against two other schools in a cross country meet with our students doing exceptionally well and capturing most of the top 10 placements. More importantly though, we were able to emphasize personal best and healthy living through our running club at Fern.
House league volleyball is the next extracurricular sport that our senior students will have the chance to participate in. As with soccer our students will be in cohorts. Attention for covid safety and necessary precautions will be discussed as with school routines with our students. Our games will start the following week afterschool in the gym from Monday to Thursday and will extend into January. Volleyball skills are also going to be taught as part of the physical education program starting this week.
At this point we are not yet given directive from TDSB as to whether there will be winter sports with inter-school athletics ( tournaments with other schools). As soon as we have this information we will inform our students and community.
Finally, we are thankful that extracurricular sports are back as they play an integral part in our students' school life and their ability to socialize and exercise. We are also hoping at Fern Avenue public school that in the future it will be safe enough to return to running extracurricular sports with many clubs as in the past, and that juniors are also able to participate.
Sarantos Katsihtis
Physical Education Teacher