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Why PE should be put on a pedestal when designing your curriculum.

Over the last two years we have all been forced to reassess our mental and physical health because of the global Covid-19 pandemic. Most adults we have worked with over the last two years have reflected on their health, their wellbeing and their work life balance. This is no different to children. In 2019 when the government took the unprecedented decision to close schools for all children (except the most vulnerable and those of key workers) many schools focused the initial home learning on creativity, exercise and wellbeing. Millions joined Joe Wicks for his daily workouts and children across the country continued dancing, training and exercising via online classes.



So, as we move forward and life begins to return to some sort of normality, we must remember that for young people to thrive we need to focus on sport, wellbeing, and creativity with equal weighting to English and Maths.

The governments white paper “Opportunities for All: Strong Schools with great teachers for your child” (March 2022) focused on getting children ‘on track’ with a target of 90% of pupils working at the ARE by 2030. It focused on strong curriculums, mental health teams, the development of MATs and cultural education which we, Tickhub, believe are so important. However, without children having high quality physical development opportunities we make it so much harder for them to thrive.


The DFE research review series report for PE (March 2022) states that

“High-quality PE is an entitlement for all pupils, regardless of their starting points or their prior experiences of sport and physical activity. The national curriculum states: A high-quality physical education curriculum inspires all pupils to succeed and excel in competitive sport and other physically-demanding activities. It should provide opportunities for pupils to become physically confident in a way which supports their health and fitness. Opportunities to compete in sport and other activities build character and help to embed values such as fairness and respect.”


So why is PE such an important part of development?

Did you know that globally 80% of the adolescent population are not sufficiently active? Did you know that up to 5 million deaths a year could be prevented globally if the population was more active? Many people think of PE in schools as simply exercise but in reality, it is so much more. The importance of being physically active has many associated benefits, not just around increased mobility and exercise but also better mental health and increased concentration. In addition to this, we know that increased physical activity

  • has significant health benefits for hearts, bodies and minds

  • reduces symptoms anxiety and reduces depression

  • enhances thinking, learning, and judgment skills

  • ensures healthy growth and development in young people

  • improves overall well-being.



As we all continue to develop and enhance our curriculum offers in this new post Covid world, we should consider how a well-balanced and resourced PE curriculum can benefit other areas of the curriculum.

Physical Education is ideally placed to support children's all-round development. As well as developing physical skills, PE teaches children intellectual skills; helps them navigate complex social situations, and nurtures their emotional development. However, this is a contrast to feedback from Early Careers Teachers, with many reporting that they have limited training on the teaching of PE skills and some saying they do not feel confident planning and delivering PE lessons. In some schools the wide range of benefits of PE are overlooked and PE is underutilised as a tool for supporting a holistic and well-balanced education for all children.

As we move forward with curriculum planning, we must look at our overall curriculum offers and ensure a balance of learning. The impacts of being outdoor and exercise on children’s social skills are well known. Sport and physical activity increase children’s happiness levels and allows them time to develop social interaction skills.

Physical development has positive impacts on children’s cognitive abilities – including their ability to make decisions, organise themselves and be part of a team as well as increasing their problem-solving abilities. Sport England have conducted research on the overall impact of sport on our communities. We know that through participating in sport children (and adults) develop social awareness and thus foster their emotional development – helping them to be more confident, more motivated and more self-aware.

Sport also supports and develops children’s interpersonal skills through its collaborative nature. When children and young adults work in a team with a joint goal in mind this will allow collaboration skills to grow. Through collaboration children develop confidence and the ability to work as part of a team; they develop a joint understanding of their own strengths and how to develop the strengths of others which in turn helps them to develop empathy. When children work together in sporting events, they develop skills that are transferable to the classroom and later into their adult life.



We live in a diverse world and the upcoming post 16 bill focuses on developing apprenticeships and work placements. Schools need to recognise and foster the individual strengths that each child has. For some children sport is their opportunity to excel and shine. It gives them a sense of success and confidence. Sport also allows children to be creative and develop critical thinking skills through communication, team work and their team management of conflict within events. Examples of this are not only within well established sports events but also when children have the opportunity to create, plan and implement their own sporting games. These opportunities allow children to take on leadership roles and ownership. They also offer children opportunities to self-evaluate, to think critically and to modify and develop their games – all skills that are necessary in life beyond education.

When unpicking and developing our curriculums, we should not overlook the importance of sport and activity on developing vocabulary. Sport gives real life opportunities to teach specific terminologies such as movement and direction with younger children to muscle names and biological language with older learners. We should remember that PE is a language rich subject that can be used to help children learn word meanings in context and it is an opportunity to directly teach specific language and vocabulary which will support them across the whole curriculum. PE allows children the opportunity to talk about global sporting events, countries and cultures and opportunities to develop speaking and listening skills.

When looking at the importance of PE within a school’s curriculum let’s not forget the youngest learners in our education system. In the Early years physical development is so much broader than PE – it’s the opportunity for young children to develop motor skills that strengthen their core and help them to develop the body strength, flexibility, movement and control to then be able to build on fine motor skills as they grow.

For young children it’s essential that they have the opportunity to run, to climb, to dig and to sweep among other things – they need to build up and develop gross motor skills. They need to participate in activities that help them to find their balance and learn to cross their middle line. Since lockdowns began more schools are offering outdoor learning as part of their curriculum or forest school sessions and forest schools and nurseries are on the rise. Young children need these opportunities to take risks, develop their core strength and language through practical and hands on experiences.



As we continue to develop our post lockdown curriculums, we must ensure that as schools, as leaders, and as teachers we are brave and forward thinking. We must ensure that we look at how we use PE as a tool to support not just physical activity but social interactions and cross curricular skills. Our PE curriculums should be bold and broad with opportunities for all children to develop life and learning skills that stay with them as they move forward through education and into adult life. In order to develop these skills, as well as providing sport that challenges children and provides opportunities for competition, schools must look differently at the role that PE has within their curriculum and the incredible range of values that it has for all children. Only when we prioritise PE, putting it on the same pedestal and valuing it with the same importance as English and Maths, will we see the full impact that it has on children’s overall learning.


Rebecca Tarplett

(Written as a guest blog for CMXSC Sport twitter @cmxsc)



Further reading and references:

· Sport England – Why investing in physical activity is great for our health (2020) https://www.sportengland.org/news/why-investing-physical-activity-great-our-health-and-our-nation

· World Health Organisation information on Physical Activity https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity

 
 
 

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