Let’s Finally Kick Old Style PE Schemes of Work into Touch - By Nick Powell, managing director, PE Partner

 

As I travel around the country speaking to teachers in lots of different primary schools, it often surprises me to see the approach many are still taking for both their planning and delivery of their physical education lessons.  

Despite the abundance of high quality, well thought out PE curriculum choices schools now have access to, we see far too many still delivering PE through half term blocks focusing on a particular sport or activity. They are missing a huge opportunity to make a much bigger impact.

Pretty much all of the leading curriculum products that have come to the fore in the past few years, including the SPIRALPE platform that we license, have been built by passionate, sports minded people. 

Over the past 10 years I’ve had the opportunity to speak with lots of these PE curriculum developers at various events and through many social media interactions; usually in our slightly frustrating echo chamber, and here’s what I’ve found.

Whilst there are obvious differences and nuanced approaches, it seems there is a common theme in that these are people who actually look back on their own formative experiences of PE with fondness, but who now recognise that the sports centred block model that catered for them, can alienate a whole group of children. It’s a realisation that PE is not just for the sporty, it has to be seen as a vehicle to build the foundations of health and physical activity for everyone.

It’s more important than it’s ever been. Recent figures show that over a third of the UK’s adult population are simply not moving enough to meet the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines for a healthy life* and that simply has to change. There is little doubt that a person’s attitude towards being physically active is embedded in primary years, so whilst it’s not the only factor, what we do in PE really does matter. (*Source: Statista 2023) 

It’s undeniable, even by our most emotionally scarred and vocal, “I hated PE at school,” friends, that there are obvious benefits for every individual and for a wider society of a healthy body and mind, so the starting point for any PE curriculum plan should be to aim to make sure that EVERY child can look forward to and enjoy their physical education lessons. 

For some children, who maybe lack a meaningful role model for positive activity, PE lessons can be the one time a week they are encouraged to do anything physical at all, so, that short window represents an incredibly precious opportunity. Whilst there can be arguments about which ‘physical literacy skills’ should be at the heart of their curriculums, the thing these people all agree on, is that children need to enjoy their PE lessons if we are to stand a chance of helping them form positive habits and develop a healthy lifelong attitude towards physical movement.

"It’s just as clear to see another group of children

who might not excel at sports"

Clearly, there are children who love and excel at competitive sport. It’s just as clear to see another group of children who might not, and to know that the thought of the next 6 weeks of lessons being centred around a single sport or activity which they actively dread and which fills them with horror, which in turn contributes to solidifying their opinion that PE just isn’t for them. It’s an excuse for them to check out, and that… we must remove!

Hearing that they are approaching a block of football or dance, athletics or net or wall games, can disengage whole cohorts within a class – I’ve certainly seen that happen with the block approach. Finding an activity everyone likes is always going to be an incredibly difficult balance, so let’s not get fixated on the activity or the theme - let’s make it all about the experience. Fun engages children and engaged children will try new things.

Sports are only mentioned fleetingly in the primary physical education national curriculum as possible vehicles to teach physical literacy skills. An example of this being a suggestion that you could use gymnastics or athletics to teach flexibility, but that’s certainly not the only way. It’s intentionally vague so that you can adapt to the interests and needs of your class, and it gives teachers the licence to find a way to teach flexibility in a way that is fun, interesting and has personal challenges to explore. 

The national curriculum doesn’t care if children know the detailed rules of netball, it only cares that children can move effectively. It wants them to have a variety of opportunities and it absolutely needs them to not “hate PE” so we should be doing everything in our power to make sure they can all “love PE” - removing traditional blocks and introducing more surprise and more variety, within a purposeful and progressive learning journey as this really does work wonders.

That’s one of the main practical things we like about SPIRALPE. Whilst the skills are carefully sequenced and the knowledge progression supports pupils development in PE, the children carousel through different activities and it changes what’s called the ‘delivery thread’ every week, so it can be football one week, gymnastics the next and team games the week after.  The focus is very much on developing the skills and knowledge progressively, and in fun ways rather than on the sport - the sport or activity is completely secondary. We really find that because of that, the children don’t disengage, as they don’t know what is coming next and they can see and feel the progress they are making in their skills. So, in the simplest terms, if a child didn’t like this lesson, they might like the next one. It doesn’t give them a chance to form a bad opinion of ‘PE’ and that is absolutely vital.

I’ve heard teachers say things like, ‘But how will they get to know how to play tennis if we only spend one week doing it?’ I ask them to look at the national curriculum and show me where it says primary children should know how to play tennis. It doesn’t! The same is true for gymnastics, but I know lots of schools who stress about how they are going to teach a block of something they all feel really ill equipped to deliver and aren’t being asked to deliver anyway. Knowing what the PE curriculum says is a common gap in many primary teachers’ knowledge.

Children should learn how to coordinate, control and time their actions, so that they will not only be good at tennis, but will have the movement skills that gives them success in a multitude of activities, not just sports - tasks as simple as catching a bunch of thrown keys, running for a bus or climbing a style in a farmer’s field, become easier with the skills gained in PE lessons.

It’s important that we don’t neglect the sporty. Of course, proficiency at sports can be a by-product of PE, but it’s certainly not the central reason the subject exists. Making sure our children enjoy moving is how we help more of them go on to find a passion for their own personal physical pathway. SPIRALPE calls it, ‘flourishing in and beyond PE’.

So, this important revolution is happening, but a surprising number of schools are slow to move away from the comfort blanket of tradition and their sports-based schemes of work.

It’s easy to stick with what you know and people can be resistant to change, especially in a subject which is still viewed as a low priority in the grand scheme of everything a school has to do, but we’ll keep banging the drum and you should too! 

(Banging a drum is just one of the creative things we do in PE lessons to work on our timing!)