By Casey Neill
Yarraman Oaks Primary holds an Australian record.
The Noble Park school launched a month-long health focus at its Walktober Fun Fest on Wednesday 5 October.
At 4pm, everyone limbered up to hokey pokey with the Australian record for the largest group of people performing the dance in their sights.
“Unfortunately the week before a school with 1800 kids did it,” the school’s student wellbeing co-ordinator Elissa Sewell said.
“But we had 220 people doing the hokey pokey and set the record for the most number of people performing the largest circle dance simultaneously.
“We’ve got a gold-plated certificate.
“They were all stoked.
“It was lots of fun. It was great to see the children and their parents interacting and all joining in.”
Police officers and mascots from Cricket Victoria, YMCA and Fotheringham Reserve joined in.
“It’s just the start of our month-load of celebrations,” Ms Sewell said.
“We’re trying to increase activity and healthy living.”
From lunchtime walks to Tuesday tennis, yoga afternoons, belly dancing and pedometers tracking steps, October will certainly be active at Yarraman Oaks.
“Kids are coming up to me and saying ‘I’ve done 8000 steps today already’ or ‘we’ve been jumping in class’,” she said.
Even toddler and a father – despite being dressed in jeans – gave yoga a go.
“That’s the best part – the community were all getting in the spirit,” Ms Sewell said.
The school will present prizes to the students who complete the most steps each week.
“At the end we’ll find out how far we’ve gone in quest to go around Australia,” Ms Sewell said.
“We need to reach 33 million steps by Cup Day.”
The school makes its record attempt.
