Congratulations to ACHPER Victoria’s 2019 Award recipients!

Congratulations to ACHPER Victoria’s 2019 Award recipients!

In response to the current and emerging circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 virus, on Friday 13 March we decided to cancel our ACHPER Victoria Awards Ceremony and AGM.

This decision was made to ensure the health and wellbeing of our community is front and centre.

We’d like to thank everyone who has worked very hard to make this event a great celebration of the wonderful and important health and physical education (HPE) work being undertaken in schools and universities, but feel at this time the decision made was the right one.

These Awards are our avenue to recognise and continue to encourage the excellence demonstrated by individuals through academic study, research and professional practice. We reflect on the past year’s achievements within ACHPER Victoria, and express our gratitude to the many dedicated members and affiliates who have worked with us to support our vision of Active and Healthy Victorians.

Whilst we can’t meet face-to-face to celebrate the achievements of 2019’s best and brightest champions of HPE, we are very proud to announce and honour the following award recipients.

Most Outstanding Graduating Students

Each year, we invite the eight Victorian tertiary institutions to identify and nominate their most outstanding students. These awards recognise students graduating from degree programs or specialist studies directly aligned with ACHPER’s areas of focus, being physical education, health education, recreation and outdoor education.

Honour Awards 2019

These awards recognise individuals who have demonstrated dedication, passion and service to the advancement of ACHPER Victoria’s focus areas being Health, Physical, Outdoor and Recreation Education and who have done so with a strong connection to ACHPER Victoria and commitment to the profession.

Josh Ambrosy | Federation University
Josh has been engaged with ACHPER Victoria for the past 5 years. Josh initially engaged with us as a presenter and reviewer for VCE resources. In his role as Education Officer at Outdoors Victoria, he was instrumental in helping strengthen bridges between the two organisations. Josh has been heavily involved with ACHPER Victoria resource development and has presented at workshops and conferences. He has also been a reliable sounding board to ACHPER Victoria in matters relating to outdoor education and building teacher capacity. His honesty, integrity and willingness to support is highly valued.

Not only has Josh contributed his own expertise, he has also encouraged and mentored others, to connect with ACHPER Victoria thereby contributing to building sustainability in this important learning area. Josh is an experienced outdoor education teacher, and has recently taken on a lecturing role within the School of Education at Federation University (Mount Helen Campus). Josh is also completing his PhD through Deakin University with a research focus on alternative models of teaching and learning in middle years education.

Adam Hipwell | Ave Maria College
Adam has been engaged with ACHPER Victoria for over 7 years. His background training was in health and physical education and, over the years, has moved further into outdoor education expanding his experience and knowledge in this area to become a well-regarded leader in this space. Adam has spent several years contributing to ACHPER Victoria as a presenter and resource developer including leading writing teams.

He also administers state-wide VCE OES teacher and student online networks providing valuable support and mentoring to new teachers within Outdoor and Environmental Studies. Adam is often described by others as “one of the nicest people you would ever meet” and is always willing to help others grow and develop as teachers. In addition to supporting others, Adam understands the benefits of self-growth and is always looking for opportunities to extend and challenge himself.

Past Honour Award recipients:

Excellence in Teaching Awards 2019 – Health and Physical Education Teacher of the Year

This award is open to ACHPER members who are current practicing primary or secondary teachers in Victorian schools within ACHPER’s areas of focus. Winners have demonstrated excellence in relation to their professional knowledge, practice, innovation and engagement in the teaching of physical education, health education, and / or outdoor education.

Health and Physical Education Primary Teacher of the Year
Joanne Ritson | Ripponlea Primary School
Jo builds exceptional relationships and inspires motivation with all her students. She makes each lesson something students can reach at their own level and gradually builds their skills one step at a time. She has extensive knowledge of the Victorian Curriculum, embeds differentiation practices driven by unique formative and summative assessment practices which capture student agency and uses continuous data tracking and monitoring to inform her planning and teaching. Jo supports, guides, encourages and inspires her students to achieve their personal best whatever that may look like. The result is increased participation, skills, health and overall mental health and wellbeing.

Health and Physical Education Secondary Teacher of the Year
Samantha Ditty | Heatherwood School
Sam has a strong understanding of each of her students which allows her to differentiate the curriculum to meet the needs of the individual students. Sam has a calm and caring manner towards students and allows them time to process her instructions. She encourages them, and knows when to challenge them a little, so they can gain skills and confidence in their abilities. Sam always engages professionally with the other PE teachers at team meetings and sporting events. She is willing to support and offer help to others and is very dedicated to providing inclusive opportunities for all students to broaden their experiences.

Innovative Program Awards 2019

These awards are open to any Victorian primary school or secondary school demonstrating overall excellence as it relates to ACHPER’s areas of focus. The innovative program does not necessarily have to comprise the entire Health and Physical Education curriculum but may focus on one or more parts of it. The program should be original and innovative in approach and have completed at least one full cycle of implementation, including evaluation, to be considered. A program might be something developed across the entire school or focus on one, or two, year levels or possibly across a group of schools within a network.

Innovative Program Award (Primary)
St Kieran’s Primary School | “Running with Numbers”
Running with Numbers combines movements such as running, throwing, catching, balancing and jumping with fundamental numerical concepts. The program allows students to be actively having fun whilst consolidating their understanding of 1, 2- & 3-digit numbers. This program is based on “Action Based Learning” research which supports learning through movement for retaining information. The program aims to address two main areas, firstly – allowing younger students to be more active with their learning, and secondly – enabling opportunities for repetition of numbers and explicit teaching through movement learning. Running with Numbers is a very popular part of the St Kieran’s curriculum which compliments the physical education program by creating more opportunities to be active and improve physical skills as well as numeracy skills.

Innovative Program Award (Secondary)
Lilydale High School | “Athlete Development Program”
The Athlete Development Program (ADP) offers students who have a sporting passion and talent additional periods of physical education (PE) to further develop their athletic potential, as well as tailoring the curriculum with a sporting theme in english, mathematics, science and humanities to increase student engagement across all key learning areas. The program aims to retain students at Lilydale High School and to offer them opportunities to pursue both academic and athletic excellence. The ADP has many benefits for both the school and our students, ranging from improving their physical capabilities to their academic performance. Ultimately the ADP creates an environment for students to strive to be their best in a supportive environment whilst making great friendships along the way.

All award recipients will be contacted by ACHPER Victoria to arrange delivery of their awards. Again, well done and heartfelt congratulations to all our fantastic 2019 Award winners!

Annual General Meeting

As per our constitution, we are obliged to hold an Annual General Meeting. Arrangements are being made to hold this meeting via webinar and details will be distributed to all members in due course. Members are able to cast their vote in the Board election and / or record apologies via this link now. 

Watch this space for professional learning, resources and further announcements of future products and services including digital resources, online courses and future face-to-face events.

Click here to view 2018’s winners and for further information, please don’t hesitate to contact us.