From the PTASC 16.01.2021
Hello KIS Community!!
Happy New Year and not to happy MCO 2.0. This has started out as a strange year indeed! With a few days back in school as a whole and now some kids are doing e-learning at home while others are in school.
We may be separated by MCO’s and SOPs, however we have been lucky enough to be able to get out and move! The PTASC is also lucky enough to have the Head of PE (Ms. Catriona Watt) on board. In our last meeting Ms. Watt came to us with a proposal of doing an all school physical challenge/ competition! While we all may not be able to move much during an MCO, together, we can move mountains, or perhaps go around Sabah! Who will win? Gaya Pangolins, Sapi Sunbears, Sulug Sharks, the KIS teachers or the KIS parents?! We have until the end of January to complete this task! Please read below to learn more about this exciting challenge. Game ON!
Get up and MOVE!
Whilst we sadly found ourselves back in a 2nd MCO for the health and safety of all, we are fortunate in that this time the government have recognised the value and importance of keeping active and taking part in regular physical activity for both our physical and mental well-being.
As a school, KIS place a lot of importance on health and well-being and are always looking to find ways to strengthen the message of adopting healthy lifestyle practices and behaviours as seen through our recent ‘Movember’ challenge and ‘Well-being Wednesday’. We can all agree that a little bit of exercise lifts our spirits and mood tremendously! So with that in mind, we want to kick start the new year and MCO 2.0 with some physical activity. Time to “get up and MOVE” KIS!
The Challenge!
A pangolin, a sun bear and a shark lined up at the gate of Kinabalu International School in Kota Kinabalu and set off on a race to travel all around Sabah. Who do you think will make it back to Kota Kinabalu first?
Goal: To see if we can walk/run/cycle/move our way around the 2068km circumference of our beautiful state of Sabah.
We will divide up into our 3 House teams: Gaya Pangolins, Sapi Sunbears and the Sulug Sharks, who will also be challenged by a ‘KIS Parent Team’ and ‘KIS Staff Teamf’ to see which group can travel the furthest through the remaining month of January.
How can you accumulate km’s for your Team?
Even if you are unable to leave your house to exercise outside, there are many different ways to keep active at home. Whether that be designing your own at home workouts, completing a daily fitness challenge, yoga or even maybe following along to some of your favourite Just Dance videos!
We want to make it as easy as possible for people to take part without having to rely on tracking apps. Therefore, you can accumulate km’s for your team by completing either distances (if you have the means to track it through an app already), time on a given activity, or by completing specific exercises. See the table below that explains how far you will travel for different activities.
Activity |
Distance/time/reps |
Distance earned |
| Walking/running/cycling/swimming (using app) | Distance travelled (nearest km) | = Distance travelled |
| Walking | 30mins | 2km |
| Running | 30mins | 4km |
| Cycling | 30mins | 8km |
| Swimming | 30mins | 2km |
| Jumping Jacks/Star Jumps | 200 reps | 1km |
| Squats | 100 reps | 1km |
| Push-ups | 100 reps | 1km |
| Sit-ups | 100 reps | 1km |
| Weight training | 30mins | 1km |
| Dance | 30mins | 1km |
| Yoga | 30mins | 1km |
| Active play (Any kind of activity where frequent whole body movement is required e.g. riding a scooter, playing a game of tag with your family, practicing your basketball or football skills at home etc) | 30mins | 1km |
How do you log your km’s?
Any time you complete one of the physical activities listed you can then fill in the Google Form found here with your details and include either a screenshot of your activity, or a photo of you taking part in the exercise.
You can complete the Google Form after every activity you take part in, as often as you move!
Tracking our progress
At the end of each day, we will tally the distances travelled and recorded by each team and update their progress around Sabah and publish this on Dojo for Primary and the Student notices in Secondary.
Remember, as well as the students competing for their Houses, parents and staff will also be taking part and trying hard to beat their children and students!
We will have a leaderboard as well for the ‘most active movers’ in each Year Group with dojos and house points up for grabs for those that cover the most distance.
Completing the Challenge
We are running the challenge until the end of January. I am confident that in that time every team should be able to get all around the 2000km of Sabah, maybe even more than once!
