Submitted by: Sonia Sheehan, HPEC Vice President
Communications
Welcome to the 2026-2027 school year. As I embark on my
school start up, I am reminded of a session I attended at the recent 2026 HPEC
Conference held in Banff this past school year. The session was titled “STOP,
THINK, PREVENT…Teach Injury Prevention”. This session highlighted the SPHEReS
resource, that is available online, to ensure Alberta physical education
programs, DPA initiatives, and intramurals follow safe practices. SPHEReS
stands for School Physical Activity, Health & Education Resource for
Safety. This website is maintained by the Injury Prevention Centre that is part of
the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta. This is a free online
resource that can be found here:
SPHEReS is an Alberta resource intended for use by
Alberta schools, staff and administrations. The purpose of this resource is to
provide safety guidelines related to a wide range of physical activities. This
is a must read in my mind at the start of the school year and when embarking on
specific physical activities.
It is recommended to start with the Fundamental Reading
section that contains information on the following areas:
·
Roles and Duties
·
Medical Considerations
·
Environmental Conditions
·
Facility Considerations
There is a Supplemental Reading section that contains
information on the following areas:
·
Activity Programming
·
Social
·
Medical
·
Outdoor Safety
The Activity Guides section is my main area of focus
after completing the Fundamental Reading section. The Activity Guides is
divided into five sections: Curricular, Indigenous Activities, ParaSports,
Unified Sports, and Interschool Athletics. When I am teaching
throughout the school year, I refer to the Curricular section to
familiarize myself with best safety practices related to the activities I am
choosing to utilize with my students to reach learning outcomes. The Curricular
section is vast and varied and includes a wide range of physical activities
teachers would use.
There is another section of the website titled, Additional
Resources. This section includes sample forms, checklists, plans,
precautions, policies, letters, and websites.
If you teach grades 1-6, the Injury Prevention Centre has
created an additional resource, the Elementary School Injury Prevention
Toolkit. The resource can be found here:
https://esip.injurypreventioncentre.ca/
The Elementary School Injury Prevention (ESIP)
Toolkit is designed to assist elementary educators teach the importance of
injury prevention and is linked to a variety of subject areas of the Alberta
Education Curriculum, including Physical Education and Wellness Learning
Outcomes. The ESIP Toolkit website includes specific curricular links at
the different grade levels under the heading AB Ed Curriculum Links.
I encourage you to take some time and visit the SPHEReS
website and the ESIP Toolkit website as valuable resources throughout
the school year.
