Physical Education 5-11

A guide for teachers

Jonathan Doherty, Peter Brennan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781136203374
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Physical Education 5-11 is about lighting or relighting a fire in all those who have the privilege and the responsibility of teaching children physical education in Primary schools today. It is written at a time of great change: a revised Primary curriculum; an increased drive to raise achievement and potentially a narrowing of curricular scope in favour of literacy and numeracy.

It is little wonder that teachers are looking for certainty and answers to questions such as: -

• What do I teach in PE?

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• What do I need to know about children's development?

• 
  
  

• What does good teaching look like in PE?

• 
  
  

• How can I assess such a practical subject effectively?

• 
  
  

This new and updated edition provides answers to those questions, covers issues in Physical Education and provides a wealth of practical advice on teaching across the stages of the new 2014 curriculum.

Drawing upon the author's experiences as a teacher, coach, lecturer and adviser, it delivers a justification for PE as an essential element in the Primary curriculum, imbues a theory into practice approach that provides readers with clarity, instils confidence and offers a licence to teach all practical aspects of PE effectively and creatively underpinned by knowledge of children's development, their learning and the critical professional issues in PE today.

This book is the essential companion to inform and inspire students and practising teachers in this most dynamic and exciting of subjects!

PART

1

Foundations of Primary physical education

CHAPTER

1

PE: a unique subject

Chapter objectives

By the end of this chapter you should be able to:

Justify physical education (PE) based on knowledge of its purpose, scope and contributions and the new definition of it presented.

Know the aims of the subject and appreciate how historical aims have influenced contemporary ones.

Know and value the key principles that underpin the subject for children 5–11.

Understand the concept of children as physically literate and educated learners.

Perceptions of physical education

In writing the first chapter of this book it seems appropriate that we begin by describing how different people perceive physical education, since perceptions of what physical education is, and what it has to offer children, are coloured by our past and present experiences of it. These perceptions have obvious implications for the status of the subject in Primary schools and the value placed on it. For many children, trying to promote PE and sport at the start of Secondary education is too late (Jess et al., 2007). In Primary schools, PE experiences that are memorable for children are largely dependent upon the teachers who deliver it (Stidder and Hayes, 2002). Research findings and an abundance of anecdotal evidence indicate that teachers, student teachers and pupils view PE as a unique and therefore essential area of the Primary school curriculum and support the view that PE is at the heart of the curriculum. Such a view is reflected in the comments from teachers below:

‘It’s so important nowadays. I worry that children don’t move around as much as they used to. School for them is quite sedentary. More should be made of PE in schools.’

‘There is too much emphasis on what might be called ’academic subjects’ in Primary schools. There are children in my class who are really good at PE and for some this might be the only area in school they can really excel in. It helps their self-esteem so much.’

‘I love teaching PE. I’m not very sporty myself but I love teaching it. You can see real improvements. Children get so much out of it.’

‘I worry that Primary schools are all about targets. I know Literacy and Numeracy are important but school shouldn’t all be about that.’

(Teachers’ comments)

These views are quite typical of teachers’ perceptions of PE that endorse it as a subject that offers something very special indeed for children and deserves to be at the heart of the school curriculum.

Comments from student teachers who were not PE specialists in a small survey carried out by the authors in both our institutions indicated that their Primary school experiences of PE were very rewarding. The quotes that follow from trainee Primary teachers reflect this and give an indication of the type of activities that formed their physical education experiences:

‘I remember the climbing frame. It seemed huge. I used to love going on this!’

‘We played a lot of Rounders and Netball in my final year.’

‘Country dancing and we had music and movement a lot too. I think it’s good to do this. It makes you think about what your body can do.’

‘I loved primary — but not secondary.’

(Trainee teacher comments)

Positive again, but a less-than-positive view from one trainee teacher pointed to the restrictions of her PE curriculum in Primary school:

‘Your teacher stumbled across Rounders or Gymnastics and that was it — you were stuck. Week in, week out, the same equipment came out of the games cupboard and the same people would smile; others cringe.’

Such a comment signals that it is not PE per se that justifies its vital place in the curriculum, but quality PE experiences that excite and challenge children, taught by informed and skilled teachers. The voices of children also present feelings of the worth of PE experiences in school and these are expressed with the clarity and sincerity of youth. Two voices from Primary aged pupils exemplify what PE means to children in Margaret Talbot’s address to the World Summit on Physical Education in Berlin (1999), which we retain in this book for the candour of children and the honesty of their voices:

‘On Mondays we do ball skills; on Tuesdays we go swimming; on Thursdays we dance; on Fridays we do gymnastics — in gymnastics we do jumping, rolling and thinking.’

‘It makes me feel as if I could fly away.’

More recently Primary children commented that:

‘PE is different from doing literacy and Numeracy. Schools would be boring if we didn’t do PE.’

‘When you do skills, you can see yourself getting better. I’m in Year 5 and I’m not getting better at Reading.’

(Children’s comments)

These three perspectives on PE, from teachers, trainee teachers and pupils, serve to say something about the essence of PE and the type of activities that begin to define it: its ‘physical’ nature and also its ‘educational’ nature. But it is by no means a totally positive picture. PE is at a crossroads. A new curriculum is with us. In schools it is sometimes seen as the poor relation to the core curriculum subjects of English, Maths and Science. According to Green (2008) there are those who would argue that the growth of sport has led to PE losing its coherence, making it difficult to pin down as its terrain develops and its borders becoming more blurred. The emphasis placed on competitive sport in schools in the new PE curriculum adds to this blurring. Some point to its state of decline and marginalisation — as measured by limited curriculum time, it being outsourced to non-qualified teachers, the low status of subject leaders and limited professional development opportunities (Pickup and Price, 2007). There is evidence of its down turn in countries across the world (Doll-Tepper, 2005). Hardman and Marshall (2000), in their world-wide survey, found its provision minimal or even non-existent in a third of the countries surveyed. Since, in most Primary schools, PE is both co-ordinated and taught by non-specialists, concerns about subject knowledge are never far away (Chedzoy, 2000; Green, 2008; Keay and Spence, 2012). Closer to home is the less-than-positive view of PE expressed by a teaching colleague in a Year 3 class some years ago:

‘PE is important but parents won’t come to you and say, My child can’t do a forward roll. They will come and say, My child can’t read.’

Yet this book argues for PE’s unique place in the curriculum and importantly in the lives of children. Primary PE provides the first experiences of organised physical experiences to children at an impressionable age (Sloan, 2010). It could be argued there is now more continuity in PE. There is, for example, continued concern about the relationship between health promotion and on-going lifelong participation in sport. Physical educationalists are now part of a much larger network of people interested in the relationship between PE and youth sport, and educational achievement and health than before (Green, 2008). As professionals, we need to fully understand what PE is all about to be able to justify it as a learning experience for children and articulate this to a variety of audiences inside and outside education. It is a hope that this book will provide knowledge to help readers working with Primary age children to articulate the uniqueness of the subject and the demands (and delights) of its pedagogy. In this next section we consider the purpose and contribution that PE makes in more detail. Before this, spend fifteen minutes recollecting your own experiences of PE in the Primary years in the task that follows.

Task: Memories Of Primary Physical Education

Recall what physical education meant to you as a pupil in Primary school. Think about the experience and the types of activities you took part in before writing anything down. The following prompts should help you:

Would you say PE was an enjoyable experience for you? Why was this?

If the experience or some of the experiences were not so enjoyable, what were the reasons for this?

What activities can you remember? Did these change as you progressed through Primary school?

Where did PE generally take place for you in Primary school? Outside, or in the school hall?

What can you remember about how PE was taught?

Are these experiences different to the experiences of children in schools nowadays?

Would you change anything ab...