For four years grade six teacher O.J. Tasse acted as co-chair for DDECAA — the Durham District Elementary Catholic Athletic Association, running the athletic department for all elementary schools in the Durham Catholic District School Board (DCDSB). As co-chair O.J. would plan and organize mostly athletic events – organizing the sport seasons, booking referees, permits, scheduling locations, anything to do with athletics, it was safe to say O.J. had a hand in it.

As co-chair of DDECAA O.J. worked closely with the DCDSB’s Teaching and Learning Services Consultant James MacKinnon. James, a big sports fan himself, saw an opportunity in the school board’s athletic endeavours to get more students involved. Despite all the work and effort they were putting into the sports programs at different schools, a huge portion of students were missing out because they weren’t part of a school team either because they didn’t make it or weren’t comfortable trying out.

James envisioned something bigger for the schools — he wanted to get physical literacy into every classroom, get every student moving. And so, he and O.J., attended the 2015 OPHEA Conference in downtown Toronto, to see if they could discover any new avenues to help in their pursuit. As circumstance would have it, it was there that they ran into O.J.’s former teacher, Thompson Educational Publishing (TEP) VP of Teacher & Student Success, Ted Temertzoglou.

Ted invited James and O.J. to join his active teacher-training workshop highlighting TEP's Functional Fitness Charts. Says O.J., "We went to his workshop and we kind of looked at each other and our jaws just dropped, we were like 'wow, we've been going about this in the wrong direction — just the philosophy of engaging students in physical fitness and how to do that in school was just amazing for us to think about."

Inspired by Ted's active workshop James made the decision to purchase a few sets of the Functional Fitness Charts to try out at various schools, one of which was O.J.'s.

That winter O.J. received the Functional Fitness Charts.

"One of the things I thought about and I think I learned while introducing [the charts] is 'How am I going to make them fit into our school culture, because all schools are different. How am I going to make this something that the kids are really excited about?'"

His main concern, he continues, is that he didn't want the charts to feel like a chore or a punishment, and so he began a Fitness Club in his class. Students would pick different charts to use, and then they'd take them outside or into the hallway and get moving.

Of course it didn’t take long before other students took notice and eventually a few students in grades seven and eight approached O.J.; they voiced their interest in becoming "fitness leaders" and starting their own Fitness Club. "I was so excited," O.J. says, "I didn't want to be the one pushing everybody, I wanted it to be something that the kids would take ownership in."

The students would come to his class a few times a week, pick out the charts they planned to use for their next meeting and also discuss the importance of reading the cards properly and performing the actions appropriately to prevent injury and build proper movement patterns. They ran the clubs once a week during lunchtime for students in grades three to eight. Any particular week there would be between 25-75 students showing up to the gym to partake in the club.

To continue encouraging student’s physical pursuits, O.J. created a fitness board that sits just outside of his classroom that students could use for self-regulation. Each week he changes the charts selecting an individual based chart and a group activity. He believes that by providing the students with an outlet to blow off steam on their own terms helps them learn responsibility.

After hearing about it from Ted, O.J.'s started branching out by encouraging his older students to pair up with younger students as "Fitness Buddies". Together the older students help their younger partners read through the charts and then they use the chart to perform the activity together.

The next step for O.J. is to incorporate more literacy and numeracy-type activities in his use of the charts. He would also like to see them being used even more widely within the school, to see more classes using the charts during instruction and for self-regulation. But for now he's content using them for student physical literacy.

Says O.J., "I think that the cards have been a really good avenue to help students get engaged in school and it's an amazing one because it's an active one."