IPLA was asked to make a contribution to a pre-prep physical education course held on 12th May 2016 at The Surrey Sports Park, Guildford.
This all-day event was focused on curriculum planning. There were four tutors Margaret Whitehead (IPLA), Patricia Maude (IPLA), Caroline Park and Sue Trottman. Approximately 60 teachers attended.
Margaret opened the day with a presentation entitled ‘De-mystifying Physical Literacy’. This focused on the roots of the concept, the value of physical literacy and the implications of adopting physical literacy as the goal of physical education. The other tutors ran practical sessions, before and after lunch. Patricia helped the teachers understand what we describe as movement vocabulary for 4-7 year old learners and also used clips from the CDRoms OCM and OALM to clarify that constituents of movement. Caroline focused on simple game-like activities most of which were created by the participants. Sue worked on the constituents of movement from a dance perspective and challenged delegates to create short dance sequences based on a range of stimuli.
While not planned as such the practical sessions displayed many of the implications for pedagogy that were covered in the lecture – most of these having been suggestions from the teachers. For example the three tutors were lively, encouraging and enthusiastic. They provided a range of differentiated activities and in many cases devolved responsibility for the nature of the tasks to the delegates.
It was clear that there is a danger of the expectation of somewhat didactic teaching in some of their schools, as well as pressure to teach games skills and be involved in full sided team situations. There was no doubt that the delegates left with a new perspective of the nature of work in PE that was both highly relevant to the pupils they taught and laid a very sound foundation for the development of physical literacy.