The Link between Athletics and Academics
For any child to achieve their highest potential, you need to address both a child’s
mind and body. The ability for academic learning and higher level cognitive skills
is directly related to a child’s core strength and sensory motor skills development.
We believe for students to achieve their highest cognitive potential, their core
strength and sensory motor foundations must be strong and fully developed.
Here’s how we do it using programs designed by Occupational Therapists and
Professional Athletic Trainers:
- Champion Schools provides 140 minutes per week of CORE strengthening exercises, bilateral coordination, balance, upper-limb coordination, running speed and agility to ALL students.
120 minutes per week of multiple After School K-3 and Junior Varsity Sports
Activities: Soccer, Kickball, Cheerleading, Basketball and Flag Football. All
students qualify to play.
480 minutes per week of Varsity Competitive Sports: Flag Football, Basketball,
Soccer, Baseball and Cheerleading. Students must qualify to play.
15 minutes per day of specific in-class exercises designed by an Occupational
Therapist to promote fine motor skills development in the classroom
For grades Kindergarten, First and Second, our focus is strengthening fine motor
development including visual skills necessary for academic success.
Third through Eighth graders are provided unique opportunities to challenge
their multi-sensory motor systems and promote advanced motor skills and brain
connections for higher learning.
Currently we are gathering data using multiple assessments including
FitnessGram, Presidential Youth Fitness Program and correlating these scores to
Galileo Academic Assessment Results. We are using this data in a longitudinal
study to map our results.
We would like to participate in university level research that would give us more
information and guidance in developing our program to maximize the benefits of
motor skills development in supporting academic performance.
Champion Schools hires trainers with degrees in PE and Kinesiology, specifically
trained by Athletes Performance (www.athletesperformance.com)
Student: Trainer ratio is 30:1 for workouts, 15:1 for multiple sports activities and