The intramural program at St. James CHS is founded on the principle that every student, regardless of skill level or previous experience should have an opportunity to participate in physical activities that are inclusive, fun and rewarding.
With a common 45 minute lunch period, the athletic council offers a variety of activities and games every day at lunch from mid–September to early June.
Activities offered are as follows:
- Indoor soccer
- Floor hockey
- European hand ball
- Four-on-four basketball
- Dodge ball
- Amazing Race
Students sign up for activities in one of four grade categories. These are:
- Junior Girls Division - grades 9 + 10
- Junior Boys Division - grades 9 + 10
- Senior Girls Division - grades 11 + 12
- Senior Boys Division - grades 11 + 12
Students sign up in teams that they make – teams consisting of their friends. We do place some restrictions on four-on-four basketball by allowing only two school team/club players per team. This helps us to ensure teams are balanced in terms of playing abilities.
Students can sign up as individuals or in small groups of two-four. In this case we will put them on teams of their choosing, if they wish. Or we may put them where teams are short players. We encourage teams to comprise of 8 – 12 players to allow for days when there are illnesses or field trips.
We also have male and female staff teams play in the Senior Divisions. This adds to the excitement and interest of the league.
Indoor soccer, floor hockey, handball and dodgeball are our core activities, lasting between 6–8 weeks each. We play in our double gym with the curtain down, which allows us to have two games played at one time and four games total for every lunch. This allows us to make sure that every team – in all divisions – plays at least once per week. This year (2006–2007), we have 39 intramural teams signed up.
The first three weeks of the schedule are set as ‘exhibition’ weeks. Every team will play at least three times before we begin the play off format for that activity.
Once the exhibition portion of the schedule is done, we seed the teams accordingly to their exhibition records and begin a play down which will culminate with a champion for each division. During the play down period, teams that are eliminated from play still get to play – they are just not playing for the championship any longer. The main point of course is that all teams, regardless of wins or losses get to play the same number of games.
Before a new activity, we give the student body a full week to sign up for the next intramural activity. After this time period, we take the sign up sheets down, type out the team lists and then post the lists and game schedule for that week. Teams are allowed to make additions and/or deletions to their lineup. No one is allowed to play for more than one team.
During the week of sign ups, we run OPEN GYMS – activities without structure that still have a great amount of participation. We will run open gym soccer, badminton, volleyball, basketball and dodgeball.
The administration at St. James is very supportive of the intramural program. Intramural supervision is a component of the school supervision plan, as four teachers are scheduled for one full lunch on intramural supervision per week.
We encourage students to come into the gym to watch the games and we also allow them to eat their lunch in the bleachers. Clean-up afterwards can sometimes be a problem, but for the most part it is not a major issue.
The staff at St. James is fully supportive of the intramural program. They support our efforts to be inclusive in our activities and by allowing students into the gymnasium at lunch, we reduce the number of students in other supervision areas.
The main role of the athletic council is to promote school spirit and engagement through active participation. They accomplish this by running the intramural program. Their duties are as follows:
- Make daily announcements about intramurals i.e., upcoming games, previous game results, upcoming activities, etc.
- Create posters and flyers to advertise the program
- Make home room visits to all grade 9 and 10 homerooms to promote the intramural program and encourage students to get involved
- Set up the gym for the activities at the start of lunch; take down and put away as well
- Officiate the games - we always do this with one senior and one junior member of the council
- Review the program and recommend changes
- Organize athletic council students into supervision/officiating teams of three-four per lunch; we designate these teams based on days of the week;
Monday - Andy, Gary, Stephanie, Michelle
Tuesday - Jen, Pam, John, Todd
Wednesday - Heidi, Jessica, John, Jake
Thursday - Matt, Kristen, Rob, Kate
Friday - Andy, Gary, Jen, Pam
- Organize and post weekly schedule
- Keep track of results to set play down schedule
- Deal with issues such as poor sportsmanship, rough play, etc.
- Over the past two years we have had two staff members involved as athletic council advisor, which has worked very effectively
- This is not a major issue
- We use existing equipment and take great care of it
- The only expense is the cost of our intramural SUPER TEAM t-shirts that we provide to students (see next heading for details)
- This program has been a major success for our intramural program
- When signing up, students have the opportunity to sign up as one team for entire intramural season
- Teams that commit to this are called intramural SUPER TEAMS
- As a Super Team member you get to design your very own intramural team t-shirt
- We monitor the design of these shirts to ensure that they are appropriate and tasteful
- Students pay $2.00 for the t-shirts; we cover the rest of the cost as we order them from a local t-shirt printing business
- These shirts act as their intramural team uniforms which they wear with great pride and great flare
- We have had intramural teams that have stayed together for four or five years
- This is a great way to build excitement and ownership in the program and a great way to get kids more engaged to the school as a whole
- Our intramural program is an extension of our Phys. Ed. program; they are mutually beneficial to each other
- Same philosophy; inclusive attitude, everyone plays, participation is THE most important component along with having fun
- Over the past ten years the number of students taking Phys. Ed. at St. James has increased EVERY year
- Intramurals has played a role in this
- Students see the gym as the place to be at lunch, which breaks down barriers and stereotypes
- Phys. Ed. staff play an active role in the intramural program as supervisors and advocates to the staff and student body
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