Extra time in gym class? It's helping Montreal North students succeed

One Montreal North elementary school is going wellbeyondprovincial standards in its push to getstudents active a strategy it says is paying dividends in the classroom.

Every week, students at Pierre-de-Coubertin school have five hours of physical education,with the exception of children in grade one who have four hours.

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That's double the minimum time set aside for gym classby the province's Education Ministry and teachers say it makes a difference inside and outside the classroom.

"They are welladjusted," gym teacher Alexis Rainville-Pelletier told Radio-Canada. "They are proud and happy to be at school."

The Commission scolaire de la Pointe-de-l'le and the school absorb the costs of the long-term project, includingthe hiring of extra gym teachers. Most Quebec elementary schools only have one gym teacher, but Pierre-de-Coubertin has three.

Admission is limited at the school, which has 240 students mostly from the Montreal North borough.

However, Pierre-de-Coubertin's mandate is personal progress, so students don't have to be athletes or have straight As to be admitted.

"Each one chooses challenges suited to them," gym teacher Normand Chaumont said. "From that perspective, everyone experiences success."

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'They are more attentive'

In the more than30 years that physical education has been at the heart of the school's success, there has never been a scientific study to measure the impact of the project.

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But principal Stfano Sabetti told Radio-Canada that children are excelling, even if they spend less time on academics and more time in gym class.

"They are more attentive," he said. "And there's less of a waste of time."

The long-term initiative also appears to have strengthened the bond between children and their school. Two former students Anne-Marie Lveill and milie Roy returned to Pierre-de-Coubertin years later as teachers.

"It was my dream to teach here and to give the kids what I received," Roy said.