Thanks to the special attention, investment and close coordination between related units, the school sports movements in Da Nang have been developing in both quality and quantity. This has created a useful playground for local pupils to improve their health and nurture future sports talents.

The annual DA NANG Newspaper Road Races creates a useful playground for local pupils and students, thereby contributing to promoting the development of the school sports movements in the city. Photo: P.N

Meet the needs of relaxation and health improvement

In order to put school sports into order, schools citywide have focused on implementing the main physical education programme which is suitable to pupils' abilities and school conditions.

Conditional schools will build new sports facilities or upgrade downgraded ones to ensure good physical training for pupils.

Up to now, the whole education sector has 72 multi-purpose houses, 208 sports fields, 68 swimming pools, and 302 playgrounds. Currently, some schools have training grounds to teach from 5 - 6 sports that pupils love.

At the Hai Chau District-based Tay Son Junior High School, after regular school hours, pupils have the opportunity to practice basketball on the school's sports field.

Nguyen Huy Hoang, a 7^th grader of the Tay Son Junior High School, said after school hours, the sports field is open to all pupils. Being passionate about playing basketball, the football field has been with Hoang for the past two years, thereby helping him improve his health, and have the opportunity to get to know and exchange with his friends.

In an effort to meet the needs of pupils, many schools have built facilities to serve a variety of sports.

Mrs. Dinh Thi De, Headmistress of the An Phuoc Primary School based in Hoa Vang District, expressed her delight as her school received a financial aid worth more than VND800 million from the Community Disaster Prevention Fund to build a swimming pool.

With this swimming pool, it is more convenient for school pupils to practice swimming. The school is teaching swimming to pupils from grades 2 to 5 according to the safe swimming education programme of the Ministry of Education and Training. Accordingly, pupils are provided with basic knowledge on land, practical knowledge in the water, first aid skills, and ways to handle dangerous situations while swimming.

In the city's plan to promote the development of school sports, many sports clubs have been established in schools citywide.

Established in 2016, the Phan Chau Trinh Senior High School’s Karate Club is increasingly becoming an attractive destination for school pupils citywide to increase physical activity exchanges.

According to Chairman of the Club Duong Thanh Hung, the club was established following the city’s policy on promoting the development of school sports.

In recent years, the club has witnessed a significant increase in the number of its members. The club's members have been facilitated to compete in competitions at all levels, and some of them have gained certain successes. Besides schools, the karate movements have been developed widely across the city.

Many exciting tournaments

In order to maintain and improve the quality of the school sports movements, the municipal Department of Culture and Sports has coordinated with the city’s Department of Education and Training and localities to organise many attractive tournaments.

Most recently, the 24^th edition of the Da Nang Football Tournament for Children in 2023 have seen the participation of nearly 100 athletes from 7 teams from districts in the city.

Not only being a healthy and useful playground for pupils across the city, the tournament also helps to raise their awareness of personality and ethics training during practices and competitions, thereby facilitating related units to discover young football talents.

Notably, pupils and students citywide have the opportunity to compete in the annual DA NANG Newspaper Road Races. This is a tournament that is evaluated with high professional quality and great competition.

Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Culture and Sports Nguyen Trong Thao acknowledged that the school sports movements in the city has developed diversely. The organisation form and content of pupils' physical education and training are increasingly rich and in order.

Every year, the city's sports sector cooperates with the local education and training sector to organise sports events with increasingly improved quality, aiming at selecting talents to represent the city's pupils at national sports tournaments.

Reporting by PHI NONG - Translating by M.DUNG