All 7th–9th grades in Vantaa basic education, both in lower secondary and comprehensive schools, are included in Urhea activities. The Swedish-speaking Helsinge Skola also makes the activities available to its students. The activities include physical and/or field-specific exercises coordinated by Urhea in connection to school days – on Tuesday morning 7.30–8.30 and on Wednesday afternoons 15.00–16.30 – as well as an elective course Kasva Urheilijaksi (Grow into an Athlete) that is available during the school day.
Urhea activities in lower secondary schools -video (in Finnish)
Urhea activities are intended for 7th–9th grade students that are involved in sports in an active and goal-oriented manner.
Applying as an Urhea student must be done in the 6th grade, in January or February, via the Urhea website. The application period will be reported via Wilma, for example.
Urhea coordinates the practices held by various sports societies as morning practices on Tuesdays 7.30–8.30 and as afternoon practices on Wednesdays 15.00–16.30. The practices include both physical and sports-specific exercises.
After the morning practices on Tuesdays, the students will continue their schoolwork according to their class timetable from the second lesson onwards.
On Wednesdays, the students end their school day at around 14.00. (The sport societies will notify participants of any changes to the practice times.)
The Urhea practices will take place outside the school hours and no study credits will be granted from them. Grow into an Athlete elective course
The optional course Kasva urheilijaksi (Grow into an Athlete) is a course unit offered in lower secondary school with 3 weekly lessons per year, implemented at the same time with the short optional subjects as 1 weekly lesson per each school year. The course contents are skill-oriented general exercises, and the course is led by the physical education teacher.
Some central themes of growing into an athlete will be gone over in connection to the exercises, such as mental coaching, nutrition, stress and recovery as well as retaining exercises. The course exercises are quite light, and they are an important part of a young athlete’s balanced overall training programme. The course is implemented either over the autumn or the spring term with two lessons a week or over the entire school year with one lesson a week. The course will be graded numerically. T
he course supports the growth of young people interested in sports into healthy athletes and encourages them to continue exercising by themselves. The course will go through the most important areas supporting an athlete’s growth during their current age with the theme ‘Practise to learn how to practise – Grow into a healthy athlete’.
The course contents follow the syllabus of the Finnish Olympic Committee’s ‘Grow into an Athlete’ general coaching course.
There are some limitations on how students in music-oriented classes, A2 language courses, Helsinge Skolan and the Vantaa International School can take part in the Grow into an Athlete course. You can see these potential limitations on the Sport’s Academy’s website. However, the limitations do not apply to other areas of becoming an Urhea student, such as practices and day camps.