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This link will provide the reader with answers to some of the more common questions surrounding the organization, implementation and long-term viability of their intramural program. As with any question, there is always more than one good answer. Hopefully the answers provided here will be a good place to start.
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Question: We always get the same students participating in the activities. How can we get more students to sign up?
Question: How do we get more girls to participate?
Question: How can I raise the profile of intramurals at my school?
Question: We don’t have enough gym time at lunch to run intramurals more than twice a week. How do we get more gym time?
Question: I am the only teacher at the school who runs intramurals. By the end of the year I am burned out from this added responsibility. I need help!
Question: I need some money for the intramural program. Where do I get the money from?
Question: We always get the same students participating in the activities. How can we get more students to sign up?
This is a problem common to many intramural programs. Make sure that you are running activities that have a wide range of interest to the students. Games that are easily played without demanding a high degree of skill are ideal. For example, floor hockey, handball, soccer and badminton among others allow everyone to participate. You could also have a school–wide survey to determine what the students want. The results will give you a true reflection of student needs. Have the student council or sports/athletic association organize, implement and collect data on the survey. Once you have the data, you can put your intramural schedule together.
Give the program a chance to gain popularity and momentum with the students. Some intramural programs take 2–3 years before it becomes well attended. These growing pains are no different than ones coaches experience when starting up a new team, i.e., football usually takes 3–4 years before it gains traction with the students.
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Question: How do we get more girls to participate?
This is an issue with all forms of physical activity for girls, not just intramurals. Physical activity levels for girls drops off significantly after grade 8 and generally continues right through high school.
Having success with female participation starts off with very small numbers and then can generally increase into bigger numbers. You need a small group of girls to become involved and carry the ‘torch’ until more girls get involved. You must do everything you can to encourage girls to participate. Have a girls division when you get enough girls involved and give them as many games on your schedule as you do for the boys.
Having girls play against boys usually does not work over the long run. This set up will succeed at first as a novelty but then quickly fades as most girls have a difficult time playing against boys – especially in high school. Having some co-ed activities like badminton will be helpful as well.
Once again, stick with it and allow some time for girls to get comfortable with the idea of getting involved.
Ask your health and physical education teacher(s) and coaches to stress the importance of involvement in the intramural program. The more people you can have promoting the program the better.
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Question: How can I raise the profile of intramurals at my school?
Below are some idea’s to increase the awareness of intramurals at your school:
Have students read an intramural announcement everyday during announcements; discuss upcoming activities and/or results of intramural games played the day before; also, if you have a message board make sure intramural news is a constant fixture.
Have students design posters about intramural activities and have them displayed throughout the school; update these posters frequently.
Have an intramural information bulletin board located in a central position in the school; display the names of participating students, teams, photographs, etc.; have this display board updated frequently.
Have students on the student/athletic council visit class rooms and do a five minute presentation about the intramural program; in secondary school, target the grade 9 home rooms in September.
Organize some staff vs. student intramural activities to promote the program; have this type of activity to ‘kick off’ the next activity; i.e., have a staff vs. student indoor soccer game to lead off the indoor soccer schedule.
Include intramural participation points included in school letters and school rewards; this will demonstrate the importance and value of intramurals to the school community.
Report intramural news in your school newsletter and on the school web site.
Ask a local newspaper reporter to visit your school during intramurals to do an article about your program.
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Question: We don’t have enough gym time at lunch to run intramurals more than twice a week. How do we get more gym time?
This is a problem experienced especially in elementary schools. For schools on traditional timetables with one lunch this can be very challenging. The gym can be used for music practices, play rehearsals and inter–school team practices as well as intramurals.
The best answer is to see if some of the inter-school team practices can be done after school. This could free up one or two more gym times for the intramural program.
On a balanced day schedule, gym time may not be as big of an issue with two slots of time vs. one.
Secondary schools with a common lunch should have no problems with gym availability for their intramural program. Inter–school team practices should be after school and the intramural program should take precedence at lunch.
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Question: I am the only teacher at the school who runs intramurals. By the end of the year I am burned out from this added responsibility. I need help!
Approach your principal with your frustration and see if there is anything he/she might be able to do as far as getting another staff member involved. No doubt this may prove fruitless with the duties of teachers and with the climate involving teacher unions and added responsibilities.
The best answer is to involve the students in a leadership role. Approach the staff advisor for the student council or sports association at your school to see if they can involve these students in the daily organization and implementation of the intramural program. This would be an invaluable leadership opportunity for these students. Programs run by students for students can prove to be very rewarding for the entire school community.
Research indicates that, in the majority of schools it is the teachers who are charged with the responsibility of running intramural programs. To achieve wider success we need to have the students take on a larger leadership role.
Having the students involved should relieve you of some of this burden.
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Question: I need some money for the intramural program. Where do I get the money from?
Intramurals is an extra–curricular activity just like the football team, debating team or school choir. Intramurals should have access to the same money that these teams and clubs do.
Intramural activities usually involve the participation of more students than the varsity teams and should therefore have an equitable share of the school athletic budget.
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