Sports
one week in the blocked way described above, you could use the traditional weekly lesson, but schools that have adopted the blocked method have reported a signifi cant improvement in the quality of the gymnastics. Key to the resource are the photocards – these show our pupils demonstrating balances, agilities etc, and have accompanying notes outlining the key teaching points of each skill. While these are useful for teachers, we also encourage the children to make use of them. The pack includes notes on setting up the gymnastic area, the use of gymnastic apparatus and the importance of demonstrations. We have our blocked gym weeks in the spring term each year and we have subsequently produced more planning units for our key stage 2 classes to use in the autumn, these are also available. Remember that each local authority has different views on teaching inversion activities. Your teachers may need to attend a course before they can teach handstands, forward rolls, etc.
Dance Days
Following on from the success of our gym weeks, a few years ago we introduced “Dance Days” for each class. Again we have produced planning that is designed to be used by non-specialists and which produce effective little dance sequences for each class to perform at the end of the day. The dance units we have planned link to topics covered in the traditional primary curriculum and through her AST role, when a topic has been requested that we do not have existing planning for, Jodie will work with colleagues to produce a plan in this area. Currently we have planning units including Space, Monsters & Dragons, Egyptians, Water, and Street Dance. Each class has a dance day each term and parents are invited to all three during the year. Giving the parents the dates at the start of the year ensures high attendance and if I am honest does hold the teachers to account.
Physical Activity (PA) Our daily PA sessions have also proved popular with our pupils. Every class has the opportunity to do a daily 10-minute PA session and generally classes will do this three or four-times each week. These sessions vary from dance and circuits to step-aerobics and hula-hooping. We have tried to keep things simple so that teachers fi nd it straight-forward – for example, we purchased DVDs to accompany the step-aerobic sessions. We have found that the fi tness levels of our pupils has increased rapidly as a result of the sessions and teachers tell me that the kids concentrate better, as they break-off from lessons, take off jumpers and shoes, do a 10-minute bout of activity before moving back to the classroom for the next lesson.
Games planning We are currently in the process of rewriting our games-planning as our teachers are more confi dent with this area of PE. At Anton, we love to involve ourselves in competitive sport
– if there is a local or county competition going on, the more children we are able to enter the happier we are. We acknowledge that not every child in, for example, football club will be selected to represent the school in matches locally, so we arrange games against C and D teams so that less able but equally enthusiastic children get these opportunities. Additionally for the last few years we have been running regular “house tournaments” in basketball, rugby, football, hockey and netball and every child in the school is involved.
Staff commitment
I was recently talking to a head who wanted a sportier ethos in his school. He was critical of staff for not being prepared to run after-school clubs. I am fortunate that every teacher at Anton runs a club and when interviewing I ask candidates what club they would run and why they think extra-curricular provision is important. This head, however, said he was too busy to run a club himself. As heads, if we think it is important to provide extra-curricular activities then we need to commit to this. I have run clubs in football, gymnastics, athletics and netball and currently I share a couple of clubs with staff, so that if I do have to miss a session the club does not have to be cancelled.
“My aim has always been to provide PE opportunities for children to participate in and enjoy and while I am keen to ensure the most able are given the chance to compete at the highest level, my priority has always been on participation over elitism”
Health and safety We have tried to arrange a programme of activities for our pupils where they are able to play in the outdoors and take calculated risks in a fairly controlled environment. Heads are probably all familiar with Forest Schools activities, but suffi ce to say that I love leading our year 3 children in their termly Forest School days at a local farm, whose woodland we are able to use for free. Our residential programme has built up over a period of years, in consultation with pupils and parents. We now have a residential trip in all four year groups – a one-night camp for year 3 at the woodland, an adventure trip to the Isle of Wight in year 4, a residential on a farm/study centre in Devon in year 5, and an activity week in the New Forest for year 6.
Sport Education
If you are unfamiliar with the concept of Sport Education it may be worth your PE co-ordinator checking it out. Put simply it is about children running sport for their peers and it is a very interesting experience. By having one unit of Sport Education in each year group it gives teachers the opportunity to provide leadership roles for their pupils. My AST meets 20 of these children from across the school one night a week in her “Leadership Club”. These children organise events for our pupils as well as for children in other schools – most successfully for pupils in an excellent local school that caters for children with severe learning diffi culties.
Local clubs So, how does primary PE fi t in with the sports opportunities offered by local clubs? We are very keen to forge strong links with good local clubs and will regularly invite some into school to do a special session with our kids, with our teachers present. We have also organised what Jodie calls “Wow Sessions” – where children get to take part in a programme (normally four to six hours) in a sport that they have probably not tried before, such as trampolining in year 3 and kayaking in year 5.
• Tom Donohoe is headteacher of Anton Junior School in Hampshire.
Further information If you are interested in the planning resources mentioned, write to Anton Junior School stating which area you are interested in and they will provide the planning resources free of charge. Write to Jodie Williams, Anton Junior School, Barlows Lane, Andover, Hants, SP11 7AT.
17
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48