A few thoughts on a Rights Respecting PE

All stakeholders in a child's life should start with the premise that all children have inalienable rights, that those rights apply in school and continue to apply in PE, no matter what the vested interest of adults are with the subject and its espoused outcomes. Therefore adults have a responsibility to treat children in PE …

PE as an existential subject

"The existential thought, although comprised of diverse ideas and perspectives, describes self-awareness and the capacity to ask questions about our existence as the essential quality that makes us human. We are 'thrown' in to this existence, which is not of our choosing, and thus we will start out with certain possibilities and limitations. We also …

Play with Purpose

A games-based approach can be mistakenly considered as a game-as-teacher approach. This is because children can learn from playing the game. The mistake is not that children can learn from playing the game. Of course they can. Children in PE can learn: nothing at all something without us something from peers something in spite of …

Purpose orientated PETE

The articulation challenge: One of the many challenges for those of us who are involved in the induction of new PE Teachers (be that lecturer, teacher educator or subject mentor) is that individuals come into the profession having already observed thousands of hours worth of teaching. The advantage of this "apprenticeship of observation" is that …

Drowning in the Shallow 2023-in-review

Top 10 read posts in 2023Top 10 read posts written in 2023What is a ‘constraints led approach’? (2016) A constraints led approach is a relatively new approach to skill acquisition. By manipulating constraints in highly specific and systematic way we can educate a performers attention to perceptual information or encourage them to come up with a different …

Boundaries

PE is powerful. Not for the potential impact it can have on children's learning and development but because, at least in England, it is the only time all children between the age of 5 to 16 are compelled to engage in movement. For external groups, agencies and stakeholders who have vested interests in inducting children …

Spectrum Insights

Teaching needs to be deliberate as we don't want to succeed at random, but we want to gain a deeper understanding of our successes and failures. (Mosston, 1966). Mosston and Ashworth's Spectrum of Teaching Styles (SoTS) offers PE Teachers, both novice and expert, a clear framework of teaching within the subject. Specifically it provides a …

Language matters

"I walk three miles daily, or bike ten miles and swim three-quarters of a mile. If you ask me why, weight control may be my first answer, followed by a desire to live long and well. But that’s not what gets me out of bed before dawn to join friends on a morning walk and …

The Gap

"Instead of seeking bold ideas, grand ideas, creative ideas, or group commitment, we should be doing just the opposite: studying our practices closely and deliberately, deepening our understanding of the circumstances in which we work, and finding small and sustainable ways to improve." (Kennedy, 2010) This post is a reminder to myself of the gap: …

The impact of feedback on performance and learning within PE

INTRODUCTION What is feedback? Feedback is information that is provided to learners during practice, usually after a single trial or a group of trials and is considered one of the most important and studied factors which affect the learning of knowledge, skills, and behaviours (Schmidt et al, 2019). The main aim of feedback, according to …