This web page provides information on the continuing co-operation between the Slapy Golf Park and the local elementary school and kindergarten in Slapy. The children began practicing golf as part of their lessons of physical education, and not only that: the co-operation and pleasure are mutual – the children are involved in golf events and golf in school events. In the autumn, the children decorated the clubhouse and the premises of the Sun Pavilion with their work and, together with the school, the golf resort announced a competition for the best pictures (not only from and about golf). The best works can currently be seen in the clubhouse and the winners will be announced by Christmas. The best will be awarded golf prizes. This is certainly something to look forward to! We shall also organise media workshops during which children will get the chance to write a short story, do an interview, write a report directly from a golf event… Come and visit our resort and see for yourselves how capable the children at Slapy are …
Exhibition of pictures and works by the children of the elementary school:
Slapy school of golf
In 2010 Saint John Golf Park and the local elementary school and kindergarten in Slapy combined the pleasant with the useful. The local pupils began playing golf in their lessons of physical education. We continued the new tradition after the school holidays. The fourth and fifth grades were the first to play, followed by children from the kindergarten and then by the first, second and third grades of the elementary school. And did the children enjoy it! Only a few of them were trying their hand at golf for the first time – most children remembered their first golf lessons from the past year and from the spring and were looking forward to the next practice lesson. A majority of the children saw an actual golf course for the first time in the spring. The children played three holes and learned interesting facts about the history and theory of golf. They got the greatest enjoyment out of repairing pitch marks on the greens. If only their enthusiasm were shared by real players! In the autumn, they continued practicing at the driving range.
Working with children is one of the most foremost objectives of our golf resort. The willingness and enthusiasm of teaching pros and organisers at the Slapy golf course were positively and very warmly appreciated by the headmaster of the local Kindergarten and Elementary School, resulting in the project of “Golf in Physical Education Lessons”, which was launched last year.
How did it all begin?
The possibilities of greater involvement of the local children in golf activities, raising awareness of golf in the local community and attracting children to sports – all that was long contemplated by Pavla Charvátová, the Director of Communications of Saint John Golf Park at Slapy. She therefore initiated co-operation between the golf resort and local children – pupils of the elementary school and kindergarten: “Two years ago, before the end of the summer holidays, we visited the Elementary School and Kindergarten in Slapy, held a presentation at the school and invited the children and their teachers to the driving range, our Academy and a tour of the golf course. This is how our co-operation began. A positive response and a tradition that has not has been firmly established – for this we must give credit to the headmaster, Renata Hacaperková. Her positive approach, enthusiasm, lack of bias and the motivation to show and give children everything that could contribute to their development and benefit them; all those are qualities of which the headmaster has abundance. It is a pleasure to work with someone like that!”, says Pavla Charvátová.
Whole village/family/school plays golf …
And this is not all. During this year’s holidays, we managed to involve almost all the teachers including the headmaster in the Play Golf, Change Your Life project, in which they could try out the game of golf, whether they would enjoy it and whether, in fact, they might be natural-born talents, all that for a symbolic price of CZK 299 … after all, they have a golf course in their backyard, so why not take advantage of this offer? Indeed, one day, the teachers could easily find that their pupils are better than they are and are more than one step ahead of them. At least in golf. This could quite well happen if the schoolchildren played golf more often and took advantage, for example, of the opportunity of participating in the practice lessons of the golf team, which are free for locals at the Slapy resort. The half-day event for the teachers worked out perfectly; the weather was great, everyone enjoyed himself and they still reminisce about the event and have been making golf plans for the year to come.
Have your children play golf, they won't wander around unattended!
Under the guidance of experienced teachers and long-time professionals, this year the Slapy resort has opened four programmes for the smallest children, a programme for the Prospects team, where the members prepare themselves for advancing to the Select team, and a programme for the biggest talents and skilled young golfers – the Select team. BMW Junior Golf Team has thus slowly, but surely been achieving its objectives and goals: to gradually create a sports club with a YSC status (youth sports centre). “We want to show children and juniors that it makes sense to do sports seriously. Not only because they have a golf course in their backyard, but mainly because we think that it is much better for them to play golf than to cut classes, hang around all afternoon, smoke, drink and spray-paint, sometimes even do drugs. This might sound harsh, but that‘s the way things are. And we can do at least something about it,” says the team supervisor and HeadPro at Slapy, Radek Wagner.
Plans for the future
Along with active participation of children in golf lessons, St. John Golf Park has initiated another form of co-operation with the local elementary school. Within art education and other clubs, children create beautiful thematic decorations and pictures and compete for the best work. Their works are being gradually exhibited in all the public areas of the Sun Pavilion and its visitors and golf players from the entire region, and indeed from the entire country, can thus admire their skills. Schoolchildren first compete in individual categories based on the artistic techniques employed, from which the teachers choose the best and most intriguing pictures, which then yield the winner at the end of the exposition at the golf resort. The awarding ceremony will take place and the prizes will be handed out at the school with participation of representatives of the golf resort – something typical of golf will be awarded as the first prize!
In addition, the people from the school and from the golf resort are also planning to combine their efforts in other areas – they are planning a joint multimedia workshop or studio where children will learn and try the profession of journalist – they will be able to write their first short story, article, report, sports headline or interesting fact for the contemplated school journal. The participants who will give lectures will also include the Director of Communications of Saint John Golf Park, Pavla Charvátová, a journalist and former editor of Czech Television news and newsreader on TV Nova. Among other things, she is preparing work for children in a small improvised TV studio … however, these are currently somewhat secret plans and a surprise for the next year of co-operation. It is clear that, when enthusiastic people meet, they will certainly not be bored and the children will definitely have fun with them. And that’s the most important thing!
Interview with the Headmaster of the Slapy Elementary School and Kindergarten, Ms. Renata Hacaperková
1. What sports do children do in lessons of physical education? What can they try out? (Other than golf?)
Since we have not had a gym for three years now (we provided it for an extension of the kindergarten), the potential for trying various sports is very limited. Nevertheless, both the school management and the teachers are trying to offer various options to the children. In our school, children can play futsal – we have been gradually building sports facilities in our schoolyard and the futsal field is mostly finished. In the future, we will try to install an artificial surface there. We also have table-tennis tables in the schoolyard – we use them during the spring and autumn. Children also enjoy playing dodge ball, older students practice RINGO, we use a climbing wall which we have installed in the former gym. The Slapy football club allows us to use their pitch, where we go through the track-and-field curriculum with the children. During the winter, we deal with the lack of a gym by organising a swimming course in the Příbram pool, where they have a swimming school for schoolchildren. Or, if the weather allows it, we go skating or cross-country skiing.
The founder of the school is in favour of building a new gym as an extension to the current structure – we are looking forward to it. The children will then be able to try out other sports, such as floorball, handball, basketball, badminton, etc.
2. Do you think that the possibility of trying golf and learning something about this sport is interesting or beneficial for the children?
This is, no doubt, an extraordinary opportunity and both I and all the teachers in the kindergarten and elementary school are very happy and especially thankful for having this possibility. In fact, at our regular meetings, I have never met a headmaster who would have this opportunity and could offer it to the pupils of his school. The children always look forward to golf, to the game itself, to the great coaches, who really know how to handle children, are pleasant, positive, have a natural authority, are able to capture the children's attention and perfectly show them practical golf skills, and also teach them the history of the sport in a very simple form. In short – the possibility of taking children for golf has exceeded all our expectations.
3. Have you ever encountered a negative response of parents when you told them that children would go play golf?
No, never. On the contrary, there are many parents who come to school and make very positive comments or even thank us for this opportunity that we provide, or actually that you provide :-), to the children. Before your first visit to our school, where you presented golf – a sport for everyone – to the children from the kindergarten and the elementary school, where they learned about all the different golf clubs and could try the correct grip and hitting the ball, there were a few (but really only few) comments that “this is going to be yet another golf campaign”. But when the parents heard from the children what they had already mastered and tried out, and were told by the school management that the children had the opportunity of visiting the golf course almost regularly and for free, they realised that your offer for their children was unselfish and unique. Since then, everyone has been impatiently awaiting further lessons from you.
4. How did the school management and the individual teachers react to this offer – the possibility of playing golf in lessons of physical education?
I was thrilled right away. I realised that your offer was unique. I think that this is true even on a national scale. I was sure that my colleagues would also be excited. And I was right. One of my colleagues had already been able to try golf in the past and further increased our enthusiasm. And then there was nothing to prevent our mutual co-operation :-).
5. How did the children like golf?
The children are always eager to play golf. Several days beforehand they discuss “what new things they might learn, which coach will teach them, whether they will be practicing at the driving range or will already go to the golf course, whether they will actually hit the ball this time and whether their ball will find the hole when they are putting on the green …” During the last visit, the children also learned the history of golf, which the older ones found very interesting and then told me everything they remembered. They even knew the “correct golf ethics” when being on the course. The school has been provided with material on the history of golf, which is excellent, because, together with the children, we can create further material for the younger ones, make presentations or worksheets for them. Simply put, the children are enthusiastic.
6. Do you want to continue the co-operation?
I will be very glad if our co-operation continues. At your resort, this is not only about playing golf, which surely is a beautiful sport, but I am also happy that you tell the children about the history and especially the ethics of the game, decency and responsibility for one’s own results, and teach them not to be selfish, but leave the course in perfect condition – for example, repair divots if we “manage” to cut out a piece of grass when hitting the ball, and pitch marks after the ball has landed on the green. Currently, when children are often surrounded by a great many bad things in this world (hatred, selfishness, violence …), it is marvellous that they easily learn that sports are not only about exerting physical strength, but also a kind of philosophy of life. I am very grateful for that.
7. Did you welcome the fact that, through golf, the children easily learned some geographical facts and history (particularly about England)?
Most certainly. That is just great. Children from the fifth grade can see that what they learn about England at school is not only a duty following from the curriculum, that they do not learn only for the sake of "marks", but that their knowledge has been combined with new discoveries about golf. And smaller children can look forward to learning about England, to being able to present their knowledge of golf, for example, as a paper or presentation in the lessons of national history and geography, or physical education. It is always beneficial for children when teaching is combined with reality and life. They are able to better remember things and they enjoy learning. J.A. Komenský knew all this and so do we, and thanks to you, we are trying to approach teaching in this way.
8. Can you imagine that you would go for a half-day golf trip with the school if you got this opportunity? Similar to making trips to castles and chateaus … (we are planning on offering this possibility to other schools in the region …)
Definitely. Teaching would thus be even more intensive and the common experience of children and all the teachers is irreplaceable. And as for children? They enjoy going for trips and, if golf were played “during a trip”, they would be absolutely thrilled. It is to your credit, because children like to play golf in your resort; they always return excited, with many new experiences and new skills.
9. Are you or your colleagues considering taking part in the Play Golf, Change Your Life project (so that you and not only the schoolchildren try the basics of golf)?
Yes. Almost all of us were enthusiastic about your offer. Indeed, we cannot lag behind the children, can we? :-) Unfortunately, some colleagues cannot participate for reasons of health; nevertheless, they will come along, at least to strengthen our team :-). I believe that we will have this opportunity again in the future and that we will be so fond of golf that some of us will become recreational players.
10. Do you have any interesting ideas of how to even better interconnect our resort with the school activities?
Next year, children from the fifth grade will have compulsory IT and Media Education. I think they will surely try out being journalists, sports broadcasters and photographers and, perhaps, an issue of the school journal could be dedicated to golf at Slapy. Another idea could be to interconnect golf and environmental education – in the relationship with our approach to the environment and ourselves. It would provide the possibility of “examining” one's approach to nature – maintaining and building new hedgerows and groves, with a view to maintaining the environment for small fauna and birds. I can also see some space for our co-operation in decorating the interior of your buildings – children are skilled painters, draughtsmen, graphic artists and ceramicists and would surely create nice works under the supervision of our teachers. We could also think about further ideas together with the children – they are fond of thinking up new things and are then excited about bringing them into life.
