The PE Playbook – February 2017 Edition

Welcome to the February 2017 Edition of the PE Playbook. The PE Playbook is a review of blog posts over the past month that are specific to Physical Education or Youth Sport. Its about bringing these blog posts into a format that is easy to find, use and share. Hopefully this will result in more PE Teachers (and others) reading them and engaging with them. If you have any feedback about the presentation or content of the PE Playbook then please let me know in the comments section of this post or via @ImSporticus. Previous Editions of the PE Playbook can be found here.

Joey Peters is an ex professional footballer and now coach who blogs at Game Play Learn. Her philosophy of coaching youth sport (mainly football) is elegantly simple; design the game, let them play and watch them learn. For me it is the design of the game that can be difficult, especially my subject knowledge is weak in a certain sport. This month Joey started writing a Game Design Series, shaping the game to get desired learning outcomes. Soccer Dodgeball, Gamifying Set Plays Let The Kids Design and a Multi-Sport Experience are great practical examples of designing games for learning in football football which can could be applied to other youth sports. Joey aims to bring back the power of play to the childhood experience of youth sport. If you share that belief then I highly recommend subscribing to her blog.

Assessment and evidence of impact in Physical Education by Dr Justen O’Connor explores questions like: How do we evidence what we do in PE? What does evidence based practice look like in PE? Can assessment serve as evidence of impact?
“We can’t be our best until you’re your best” from Mark Upton asks if we feature in a young person’s life we should help to create an environment that is special for them and exciting.
The search for talent continues by Nick Levett explores how sport hasn’t got talent identification right yet, but we can do better based on the evidence we currently have.
The E-Q Games Based Coaching Model is Henry Dorling’s framework for a games based approach to coaching, which is based on the TGfU Model, essentially games juxtaposed with questioning to check progress and learning.
The 4R’s Vern Gambetta shares Dick Best’s concept to give context to a debrief after training or performance.
A Challenge to the Dualist Perspective underpinning the Role of Physical Activity in Health by Liz Myers is a thought provoking piece that asks us to consider health perhaps as a resource for everyday living rather than just a means to a specific end.
“Don’t try to beat them into one system” once again by Mark Upton this time challenges are assumptions that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to performer development is the best way to ensure the love of a sport continues through childhood into adulthood.
Rising Tides And Avalanches is a great post by Jack Walton that offers some potential solutions to one sided games within youth sport.
Cuts like a knife – but it feels so… is a summary of recent research by Doug Gleddie about the effects of deselection from youth sport teams and what you can do as a coach to minimise the negative impact.
My kids lose all the time…and I love it!! by Stuart Armstrong is a reflection on competition in youth sport which explores what we want children to learn from it.
Checklists, Rubrics and more…. How might this look for a PE teacher? by Mel Hamada is the continuation of her contemplation of her current thinking within PE. This time she looks at how checklists could make certain tasks easier for the PE Teacher.
The Hard Questions for Coaches and Practitioners by Informed in Sport offers some difficult questions we should ask ourselves if we want to engage in true reflective practice as coaches.