“Remember the 5 D's of dodgeball: Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge.” Recently, Joondalup Primary School attended the inaugural dodgeball tournament hosted by Beldon Primary School.

Joondalup, Craigie Heights, Beldon and Poseidon Primary students played a round robin tournament. The modified dodgeball games consisted of 2x10mins halves and each school played a total of three games. Resulting in each student playing approximately an hour of dodgeball!

Leading up to the event, Physical Education in term three had a large focus on sports involving throwing as well as practicing good communication, timing and teamwork within a sporting environment. From here the students developed trust within each other and learnt to always encourage their teammates. This was very evident during the games.

Joondalup played with a very disciplined and selfless style. The students would patiently focus on keeping their players in the game then strike when the time was right. However, the biggest defining feature of the Joondalup Primary School students was their ability to work efficiently and effectively as a team. Joondalup Primary School was the only school to get all the other teams out at some point during the game and usually did so with all their players still in.

Much credit goes to the students who organised their own training sessions at lunch time and practiced in Physical Education classes. Thank you to the rest of the school who helped train the interschool team by providing people to play against. In the end Joondalup came second by a single cone. However, in the process of training the dodgeball team, the etiquette demonstrated by the students has filtered into to the rest of the school, elevating sportsmanship to an extremely high standard. That is a bigger victory than we could have asked for.

Thank you to Bec Carstairs and Jayne Butler for your help on the day and all the parents that took time out of their busy schedules to help support the school and the students. We love your passion.

Well done to all the students involved. Your dedication and perseverance was nothing short of inspirational and you have established yourselves as fantastic role models for the school and sport.

Robert Lee
Physical Education Specialist