Traditions of PE vs. Traditional PE
Alex Sporticus Traditional PE. “Traditional“. A description of the way we have always done PE against more contemporary approaches. A qualifier that is used as a pejorative. Employed indiscriminately – within the academic literature, on social media and in discourse around PE – as a substitute for practice we don’t like. I have used […]
What PE Is & Isn’t
Alex Sporticus “The aim is not for us to teach them to leave their chairs, so they can be better when they return. Our aim is to help them find a realm where they can experience some freedom, adventure, grace, excellence, strength, beauty and friendship away from chairs and to keep returning to that […]
The Bad & The Best
Alex Sporticus A couple of weeks ago, Edutopia published an article entitled 5 Fun Gym Games to Get Kids Moving. I found the subsequent commentary on the article, mainly via Twitter, absolutely fascinating. Whilst I could understand many of the points made from a range of perspectives, the conversations around the article made me consider how I’ve changed my thinking […]
Ten Thoughts on PE Curriculum Change
Alex Sporticus “How you view the nature of the world and change – either as stable ‘things’ and ‘entities’ or as a ‘flowing river’ and a ‘flaming fire’ – ultimately influences how you choose to lead and manage change.” – Iverorth and Hallencreutz (2016) Physical Education is resistant to change, or so it […]
Performance and Learning in PE
Alex Sporticus “Finally, given that the goal of instruction and practice— whether in the classroom or on the field—should be to facilitate learning, instructors and students need to appreciate the distinction between learning and performance and understand that expediting acquisition performance today does not necessarily translate into the type of learn- ing that will […]
20 Mistakes Made in 20 Years of Teaching Physical Education
Alex Sporticus Physical Education is not inherently good. Children and young people will not automatically improve their movement, health, academic success or their pro-social behaviours just by participating in the subject. To achieve that we need to become more intentional with how we shape PE, what we fill it with and how we offer […]
Harm Free PE
Alex Sporticus How can we improve the provision of PE? My initial response to that question as a novice teacher was what could I add. What new sports can I include in the curriculum that children might enjoy? What new initiatives, like the Daily Mile, can I implement that will get children moving more? […]
A Tactical Games Approach
Alex Sporticus A Tactical Games Approach to teaching Games The tactical games approach aims to improve children’s understanding of the game by combining tactical awareness and skill execution. It does that by placing them in a modified game situation with a tactical problem to solve. The rationale for a tactical games teaching in PE and school […]
Movement as a Way of Enriching Life
Alex Sporticus “It is our vision and not what we are viewing that is limited.” Nick Sousanis, Unflattening. A key part of the PE Teachers role is to improve the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed that will allow children to access different forms of movement both in the present and in their future. That […]
The Physically Educated Individual
Alex Sporticus With every government initiative in education there are unforeseen consequences. The current drive to build character through sport (and other activities) is having, in my opinion, an unforeseen negative impact on curriculum PE. Staffing, finances, facilities and time are being redistributed from PE provision to school sport provision. Now this might not […]
Shaping the Game
Alex Sporticus At the heart of a games based approach to teaching is the challenge to the centrality of learning isolated and decontextualised techniques that will ‘allow’ the child to play. Instead of starting with the practice of the prerequisite techniques, the starting point is the game and play itself. It is through play that […]
Silent Coaching
Alex Sporticus Imagine this scene: The pupils are silent as they file into the exam hall. Their names are checked, valuables left at the side and they quietly walk past the rows of desks and chairs till they find their own. Nervous tension fills the the room. The exam papers are distributed, instructions issued and […]
Competency as an Exploratory Framework
Alex Sporticus The ‘fallacy of perfected steps‘ is to suppose that one thing must be perfectly, and not just partially, mastered before one can move on to the logically next thing. Ensuring children turn into adults who lead a healthy and active lifestyle is the Gordian Knot that PE teachers have a shared responsibility for […]
Scanning and Noticing
Alex Sporticus “When you are a step removed from the fray, you see things that come as surprises – and its important to allow yourself to be surprised.” One stand out moment in my career to date is when I was looking at some promotional pictures an outside company had come in and […]
Teaching Games, Part 1
Alex Sporticus Between Monday 25th July and Wednesday 27th July 2016 I attended the Teaching Games for Understanding Conference in Cologne, Germany. The following series of posts will be a collection of the information shared by the presenters with some of my personal thoughts and questions. We are what we teach: TGfU as a complex ecological situation […]
Meaning in Movement
The parts of our PE curriculum that I find the most difficult to teach are establishing behaviours for movement (Affective Domain) and finding meaning in movement. Whilst basic sports psychology may have the potential answers for the former, I continue to struggle with the latter as it isn’t one that can be taught. It isn’t as simple as […]