Physical Literacy

Durants school is an all age special school for children with complex needs. We have pupils on the autistic spectrum, with Downs syndrome, global delays and emotional behavioural difficulties.

When I first arrived at Durants school I had three major aims. Firstly to develop a physical education curriculum that was both appropriate and relevant to all the children, secondly to raise the profile, role and understanding of the subject throughout the school, and thirdly to increase the levels of the children's participation in competitive sport.

I was lucky enough to know the school quite well before my arrival so was under no illusions of the challenges that lay ahead. The children at Durants school have a huge range of needs so, designing a curriculum that was appropriate for each child and that was going to engage and extend each child, was quite a challenge. Developing this curriculum lead me to look at the values and principles of Physical Education in much more depth.

The overall aim of the Physical Development (PD) program that I am currently developing at Durants school is to develop the child's ability to "read" and interpret a changing surrounding physical environment or space and produce appropriate movement and emotional responses to engage with it. Specifically I have included Sherborne Developmental Movement (1)and various core stability and gross motor development programmes in conjunction with National Curriculum and Foundation Stage programmes of study. It is important that our Physical Development program is linked in to the National Curriculum as our pupils have an entitlement to gain and access the same range of active and sporting experiences as their main stream peers. Consequently I have attempted to structure the PD curriculum by linking together certain areas of the National Curriculum with areas of Sherborne Developmental Movement and different core stability programmes. For example KS1 gymnastics links together with Sherborne activities which fall into the shared relationship category and a core stability/ gross motor programme looking specifically at developing strength and awareness around the middle of the body, without which you cannot roll! This is more however than just "movement towards". Through the combination of activities the children can and do improve their ability to communicate (verbally or non-verbally) and self-express, as well as improving their bodily stability or ability. The children develop their relationship with the world and themselves. They are becoming increasingly physically literate . All the children also have the opportunity to participate in dance and movement therapy, which is delivered on top of the PD curriculum.

The children's learning styles are extremely varied and may require a variety of teaching approaches in each lesson. These can range from a very "hands on" approach with lots of visual cues (particularly with our younger or autistic pupils) to an approach with very firm and clear boundaries with obvious rewards or sanctions. Specifically Picture Exchange Systems (PECS) are used with some of our children who have more severe autism, and a majority of the lessons at Durants involve the use of Makaton signs to varying degrees. Effective and clear communication with the children is essential.

Communication is a key area of development for the pupils as well as the staff in Durants school. As a school we are working towards becoming a total communication environment and we value the role that developing the children's physical literacy has in fostering this communication. Developing the children's physical literacy goes far beyond just improving their motor skills, so they are able to use Makaton signs more accurately. It helps to foster the children's self-esteem, body confidence, sensitivity to others, perceptual skills and personal vocabulary, all of which are needed to develop effective communication and all of these are promoted through the development of an individual's physical literacy. A good example is the use of PECS in physical development sessions. This allows children with autism to reflect and comment on performance and in some cases has triggered improvements in skill development.

The program also includes outdoor education as a key area in the development of their personal physical literacy. As a school we are extremely fortunate to receive a bursary from the Old Enfield Charitable Trust which enables us to take a group of up to 12 pupils a year on a residential sailing experience. The children must act as crew on board a tall ship and sail it to the Channel Islands and back (weather dependent) in 5 days. The experience has proved invaluable to the children in a number of ways. The children who have had this experience display obvious changes in attitude resulting from the emotional engagement with the task and the sense of achievement gained from completing it. The experience requires the children to use emotions that are at times purely instinctive and to manage these emotions in a positive way. My year 10 group recently took part in some research which looked into the effect that outdoor or adventurous activities had on the development of self-esteem in children who have emotional, behavioural difficulties. On this occasion the research used rock climbing as the trigger activity and the findings "clearly indicated improvements in the inter-social and personal aspects of some of the young people" ( Hardie 2006). Outdoor education is clearly promoted within the Physical Development programme at Durants school and is a curriculum area that provides great emotional development opportunities for our children.

On top of curriculum time tabled Physical Development we also run competitive teams in basketball, football, athletics and cricket as well as a Judo club in KS4. Inter-borough competition takes place in all of these sports and is extremely competitive. The results are very important to the children. As a borough we have endeavoured in the last year to develop a competitive sporting pathway for our high achieving children and young people. In the areas of athletics and football, 2006 was the first year a representative Enfield Borough team competed in the London Youth Games. The opportunity for high achieving children to play against other talented children gives them the opportunity to further improve their skills and push themselves harder than they might be able to do in their school team. It is particularly important that this sporting pathway is developed within special education as special schools are often relatively small and as previously mentioned can include children who have a wide range of needs. This means that talented children often do not get the regular opportunities (through mainstream integration for example) to play with better players than themselves and so skill improvement can be difficult to achieve. Children who have SEN have the same rights to a sporting pathway as their mainstream peers and we see it as our responsibility to provide it!

The promotion of school sport in Special schools has been made much easier by Enfield's decision to appoint a School Sport Co-ordinator (SSCO) to work with all the special schools in the borough. In addition our link with the local Sports College (Lea Valley) has been extremely beneficial in terms of sharing resources and expertise. Without a doubt this has raised the profile and the amount of sporting experiences now available to our children and young people.

In my view developing physical literacy is essential for all learning. It is directly linked to developing an individual's relationship with the world. Where the physical, mental or emotional development of an individual is impaired it is essential that a programme of study is developed to try to foster their physical literacy in a way that is appropriate to that individual. Through the medium of individually appropriate physical activity we are able to help develop our children's individual physical literacy! The increase in understanding of the concepts behind physical literacy is, in my opinion, one of the biggest vehicle's PE has for its long-term promotion and development. By increasing the understanding of the concepts involved in physical literacy Durants school is developing an attitude to teaching and development which is broad, balanced and focused on the children's needs.

Andrew Martin (Physical Development Co-ordinator Durants School)

AndyMartin1981@Hotmail.co.uk

Sherborne Developmental Movement (SDM).

Sherborne developmental movement was developed by Veronica Sherborne and is based around the underlying theory of human movement identified by Rudolf Laban. Having studied with Laban in Manchester, she spent more than 30 years developing her own approach not only with children who had SEN but also with their parents, carers, teachers and therapists. The movement techniques use a framework of shared movement experiences to help foster the development of many personal, social and physical skills. These include self-awareness, awareness of others, body awareness, sensitivity, body tension, play skills, communication (verbal and non-verbal), independence and the ability to form relationships with others.

Sherborne teaching has two major aims. Firstly it aims to develop the individual's ability to form relationships and secondly it aims to develop body awareness. Being able to form a relationship requires the individual to have both an awareness of self and an awareness of others. Sherborne states that through "relationship play" activities children are able to develop self-confidence, emotional security, body knowledge, trust and communication. All of these traits are personality aspects that all teachers would actively seek to develop in their pupils. However they are not always easily developed especially if the children have some form of SEN. In Durants school we have found that the specific inclusion of SDM in our curriculum has had significant impact on our children's ability to interact with others.

All good teaching involves forming appropriate relationships with children. In my opinion this is even more appropriate in today's classroom. Rising numbers of school age children presenting with dyspraxic or autistic tendencies means that the inclusion of a technique or programme such as SDM is essential in order to provide accurate and appropriate provision for these children. It is my view that if SDM was included in Early Years curriculum's and delivered in an inclusive way, a dramatic impact on the social and physical development of the young people attending these settings would be seen.

PE Matters Winter 2006 Vol 1 No. 3 p 50-51