Jogathon is lapping it up

IT WAS get set, ready, go for the Sunshine Beach State School’s 21st Jogathon, an iconic community event that sees hundreds of students and family members take to the running track.
Founder of the event and former health and physical education teacher Dave Chapman was on hand to lend his support as students ran laps of the school oval.
“Jogathon started in 1995 after I got the idea while teaching in the United States,” he said.
“I think ours was the first Aussie jogathon I had heard of. I taught in the states on an exchange program in 1993 and my school had sort of a fun jogathon format and I expanded it to the fundraiser to replace the Aussie icon of the spellathon.”
Mr Chapman said the idea of the jogathon has spread throughout other schools and now, if all the Sunshine Beach runners were end-to-end in a relay they would run half way around Australia.
Current health and physical education teacher Cameron Porter said the jogathon was an opportunity for Sunshine Beach State School to highlight the importance of physical activity and in particular the correlation between physical activity and academic achievement.
“The correlation between physical activity and academic achievement is linked to a variety of factors,” he said.
“These include increased blood flow improving brain growth, improvement in concentration skills and better engagement with peers and teachers.”
Sunshine Beach State School students had a great day running laps in the beautiful weather with their friends and family members.
Priya in Year 2 said the Jogathon was fun because “I ran lots of laps with my friends. My parents ran some laps with me and they had a great time too. I can’t wait until next year’s jogathon!”