The North Beach Primary Running Club was started by Caron Jowett, who initially agreed to train a handful of students ahead of last year’s interschool athletics carnival.
The mother of two said the club had grown considerably by the time the interschool competition was over and many of the students wanted to continue exercising on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.
‘Once (the interschool competition) was over, that was going to be it but a lot of kids that weren’t necessarily the best runners were saying ‘is that it, can we not continue to run on a Tuesday and a Thursday?’,’ she said.
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READ NOW‘And I thought wow, there are these kids that obviously have a passion and had got quite fit and were enjoying the benefits of running, so I spoke to the teacher and told them I would be happy to continue with the running club,’ Ms Jowett said.
She said she had seen a marked improvement in the students’ confidence since beginning the program.
‘I remember thinking to myself that we’re on to a good thing here,’ Ms Jowett said.
‘You see the improvements in some of the kids, and the confidence they now have and it’s just so nice to see kids out there having fun encouraging each other.’
North Beach primary principal Steve Pash said teachers had told him of the immediate improvements in classes since the running club began.
‘The children that attend the running club come to class a lot more refreshed and ready to start the school day, prepared and invigorated, and there were some good results in the school athletics carnival,’ he said,
Ms Jowett said she was excited to see a passion for running growing among many of the North Beach students.
‘Normally to get kids to run, you’d think it’s a punishment more than a fun thing,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to try and get the kids to love running and when we were out in the bush there was that sense of ‘wow,’ a bit of excitement.’