Inspiring inspiration

Inspiring a generation/ a nation/ children have been phrases banged around for the past, oooh, 7 years mainly due to London 2012.  But it begs THE most obvious question...isn't that what all P.E. teachers do on a day-to-day basis anyway? Or should be doing?

If I'm delivering a well-rounded scheme of work and have well thought out lessons that are engaging and everyone is progressing AND are enjoying it...is that enough?

I've taught for 8 years now in a range of schools (state, private, international), range of age groups (nursery-16) and I've seen the meekest of little lambs turn into confident athletes (not talented, but confident and capable) I've seen talented sports players go on to county and even England standard teams, I've seen talented players plagued with injury lose heart.

But I've only seen two pupils, TWO, with this natural drive, desire and passion to take themselves to the top.  Of these 2 I would say one of them stands out even more.

As a teacher we offer ourselves beyond lesson times - extra practices/ clubs/ activities so there are plenty of opportunities to coach and nurture talent.  We give advice and feedback, offer solutions to issues and support them throughout.  However this one pupil would find us in her spare time and arrange extra sessions (everyone else carrying on with their breaktimes), if a session was cut short for whatever reason she would ask to carry on for 5 more minutes (everyone else sprinting out to make the most of a spare 5 minutes), if advice was given she wanted to know the full explanation and sometimes offer an alternative.  There was a look in her eye when you spoke to her that made you feel you were speaking to a sponge - she was soaking up every tit-bit of detail you gave her.

As teachers I think we're very good at the bottom 2 tiers of this diagram, certainly for KS1 & KS 2. Game strategy tactics blends in quite easily with Sport Specific Technique & Skills but is possibly more  used in KS3 and upwards a lot more.

But mental training? How well do we cover it?  In reality I'm questioning my teaching & others I've seen teach. I think as a whole we naturally add in 'sportsmanship' 'winning & losing graciously' but REAL mental toughness....

Chris Hoy for example:

Push your limits

Training is always hard but the worst is the lactic acid tolerance intervals I do. On a static bike I do my full set and then literally collapse onto a crash mat and curl into a ball. It’s horrible. The sting just gets worse as the lactic levels get higher and your body tries to flush it out. The muscles are burning and you’re nauseated by the exertion. I often end up being sick. Every time you do it, it’s like it’s never been this bad. Then after 15 minutes – almost to the second – you feel fine. Then you do another set and go through it all over again! The pay-off is there to see in competition.

You can't force any pupil to do that - they have to want to get up and go again (I'm not for one minute suggesting that these are the levels my teaching go to but you get my drift!)

NATURE versus NURTURE the debate in my head continues.

My second reason for blogging.

My other reason for blogging is to share my other 'journey' starting in September. I've set up a second 'P.E.' session for our Reception classes. 

They are incredibly lucky in that they have one session with a qualified P.E. teacher (alongside all the other opportunities they have of play-discover-create-experiment that their teacher naturally creates for them) plus a swimming lesson each week.

The second session I wanted to try out was basically tennis all year around.  I think as a sport it offers so much potential in developing the all-round athlete and attributes we strive to teach.

Pat Cash once said:

Tennis is a tough sport because you need so many things to play at a top level. Firstly you need to perfect all the technical areas of each shot; then there's the physical attributes of speed, agility and endurance topped with balance and timing. You need mental strength too: there's no clock to run out, so every point is important and it becomes a great mental battle.

http://www.healthandfitnesstravel.com/experts/guest-interviews/pat-cash-buccament-bay 

Seeing Andy Murray follow on his success of an Olympic Gold and the US Open with an almighty victory at Wimbledon this year against Djokovic makes it an obvious sport to keep young children motivated with.

 My 2 issues with having the different sessions are

1. a brand new scheme of work based on this idea is needed but also
2. our original scheme of work already covers some of the basic principles I would use for tennis so I need to replace these with other ideas.

My first aim is addressing the brand new scheme of work. 

 I absolutely love the Set 4 Sport website and app and can easily see myself implementing most of these ideas into lessons throughout the first term. 

 Judy Murrays' way of explaining is simple, the ideas are even simpler and the philosophy of how we should be teaching (or rather playing) these activities to our pupils is spot on.

Teaching P.E. to EYFS and KS1 should be nothing but boundless amounts of fun and play and I think Set 4 Sport does this perfectly.

But should this be the basis of my tennis SoW or a side avenue for the other SoW? Could they work alongside each other for half a term perhaps?

Do they need to be separate lessons?  Should they each have their own identity?  Does who is teaching each lesson have an impact on the content for continuity?

A few questions I will need to have clear in my head before I put pen to paper and one I will address over the next few weeks.

The very beginning.....

I was made Head of P.E. in September. I've done an ok job. I always knew the first year was all about settling in, not fixing what aint broken and getting a feel for the job.
This first year has included:

• tweaking the schemes of work.
• having an NQT to induct - who has turned into an absolute gem.
• our school has begun rolling out the use of iPads.

  

  Moving forward with the times....

• we've got the go ahead to have a permanent projector in our sports hall.

These combinations have ignited my desire to really push our department forward.  I think as a school we are already behind the technology race/ development/ evolution however you want to call it. We are complete Apple users and have begun tsk-ing Window users (shameful, I know)

The iPads have been set up as a booking out system, they often aren't ready for the lesson, sometimes you can get onto YouTube sometimes you can't....it's had some teething issues.

That aside our fresh faced NQT and myself have been desperate to capitalise on the potential use iPads could have with our P.E. lessons.

So this blog is, and I'm very ashamed to use the X factor catchphrase, all about our journey.

As of September we should have

1. iPads for our department staff
2. access to iPads for pupils to use
3. a fixed projector in the Sports Hall - linked to a computer, speakers, DVD player etc.

I've now got the summer to make sure all are up and running by September (with a little bit of help from our ICT department).

My first task is to compile a selection of apps for consideration.  Carefully weighing up 'would we actually use them as a gimmick or use them to enhance our teaching?' Mrwickenspe blog addresses this and will be one I will be referring back to.  The P.E. Geek was my initial inspiration and one I will be referring to a lot more in my next blog.

Wish me luck and contributions/ advice/ help along the way would be oh so gratefully received.