Pinelands High School competes for outside gym

Pinelands High School, Western Cape, was one of the schools that competed in the Coca-Cola® 30 Minute Heroes Challenge, a competition introduced to schools participating in the Coca-Cola® T20 schools challenge and aimed at getting learners to participate in physical activity. 

After the entire school offered to participate, including the Grade 12’s, the school had to cut down the numbers to make the challenge more manageable. 

The concept encourages as many learners as possible to complete a five drill circuit within a 30 minute period.  The scores will only be made public once all schools have completed their challenge.  The school that completes the most circuits in the allotted time frame stands a chance to win a prize of an outdoor gym to the value of two hundred thousand rand, which will be installed at the winning school.

“The decision we took was to get those that participated in the first team of any sport to go first and build up momentum.  The quicker they completed the drills the more people we could get through the course in the allotted time period,” said Jason Mulder, Director of Cricket.  “The skipping was by far the most challenging, but everyone had fun and a good laugh and we got to see those that do not play sport regularly active.”

Pinelands is doing very well in the Coca-Cola® T20 Schools Challenge.  “We beat local school, Westerford High School by 8 wickets and our next game is against Bishops,” said Mulder.  “Our star player is Matthews Strauss who has taken 20 wickets in the last four games – and he is the youngest member of the team.”

Pinelands encourage their pupils to become physically active and participate in as many sports as possible.  The school won the 2013 Squash League and produced Laura Goodwill, who plays for the SA Women’s Cricket team.

Academically the school won the 2013 Science Fair.

The five drills in the Coca-Cola 30 Minute Heroes Challenge include:

1.    Shuttle runs between 6 beacons, moving a cricket ball from one   beacon to the next.

2.    Target Throwing at a set of wickets.

3.    Skipping with a skipping rope.

4.    Catching balls off a rebound board.

5.    Weaving in and out of 10 slalom poles.

For full competition terms and conditions please visit http://www.cocacola.co.za/".