CANOSSA CONVENT TEACHER HONOURED AS CHAMPION
OF STEP WITH IT®, SINGAPORE!
COCA-COLA GETS KIDS TO S-T-R-EE-TTT-CH WITH IT

SINGAPORE, 6th March 2009 -- Coca-Cola Singapore’s award-winning healthy lifestyle community programme, Step With It®, Singapore!, has awarded its Champion of Step With It®, Singapore! award to Canossa Convent Primary School PE teacher Josephine Tan.

In a ceremony before the roadshow at the school today, PE teacher Josephine Tan was awarded the Champion of Step With It®, Singapore! prize for her outstanding contribution to the programme in the previous year, helping to incorporate it into the school’s PE curriculum and making it a hit with the students.

Coca-Cola Singapore Public Affairs & Communications Director June Kong said: “Josephine really took Step With It®, Singapore! to another level, incorporating many of her favorite features of the programme through the years into an exciting, holistic programme that took the school by storm.

“We are proud to recognise her contributions, and for her efforts, we will be supporting the school to go even further with their healthy active lifestyle programmes.” In all, Canossa Convent Primary School received $5,000 which was used to purchase over 717 badminton racquets to help the school and its sister school, Canossian School, to improve upon its competition skills. The school's junior team was placed 4th in the East Zone Inter-Primary School Badminton Championships 2008 and the senior team placed 3rd. Canossa also received 50 cartons of 100PLUS isotonic drinks, while Ms Tan walked away with a $200 book voucher and crystal Coke bottle.

Ms Tan remarked: “It is a thrill to get this recognition from Coca-Cola although the biggest satisfaction came from knowing how much the kids enjoyed it. I 1 even received a card from some pupils on Teacher’s Day last year thanking me for helping to arrange Step With It®, Singapore!”

Canossa Convent Primary School has been partnering Coca-Cola Singapore with Step With It®, Singapore! since 2006, and extended the curricula provided by Coca-Cola into other programmes around the school around the themes of hydration, grooming and healthy eating. They featured cartoon characters from the curriculum modules to convey safety tips, give healthy dietary tips, and feature in grooming and eye care programmes.

This year, Step With It®, Singapore! has travelled to 30 primary schools across the island, reaching over 44,000 pupils. This brings the total reach of the programme to some 250,000 Singaporeans (190,000 students) since it began in 2003.

The programme incorporates a roadshow with a professional instructor to train teachers and students on the versatile use of resistance bands in fitness programmes, while also giving schools the tools to incorporate it into their PE lessons.

The use of resistance bands are known to help in building muscular strength, balance, lean body weight and flexibility in children and adults. They can be used to exercise within confined spaces, making them a suitable exercise tool for people living in apartments or on the move.

June Kong said: “It is important to innovate to keep it refreshing and fun. We hope the schools find them useful and we are encouraging them to continue using the bands in their PE lessons long after this year’s programme has ended.”

Other exercise tools such as the "Stepometer", a pedometer-device that counts steps that you take, were also used in the course of Canossa’s events for contests and prizes, involving both teachers and students, with parents invited to attend. Canossa also ran a survey on the 2007 programme in which nearly 80% of pupils voted to continue the programme and 72.5% stated they learned more about healthier food as a result. The workout routine from 2007 was also used in their ACES day programme and will probably feature again this year, said Josephine Tan.