And Another Thing ...

'The motivation, confidence, physical competence, understanding and knowledge to maintain physical activity at an appropriate level throughout life,' runs a definition of physical literacy in the Spring copy of Physical Education Matters. Elsewhere, on the Internet I've read of the ABC of physical literacy - agility, balance and coordination.

Having just rejoined the Association for PE, I'm a bit baffled with all the noise around Physical Literacy. Indeed a heading of  'Achieving High Quality Physical Education through Physical Literacy' seems a total tautology. Surely, physical literacy is simply the result of good PE teaching, not something to be promoted as a separate end. It reminds me of a previous scheme, dating back to the 80s and early 90s, called 'Health Focused PE'. Again, is it not self evident that the promotion of health is one of the purposes of good physical education.

For me the aims of physical education have always been very clear. Physical Education is physical, intellectual, social, emotional and moral development of individuals through engagement in structured physical activity. I wish we would stop bleating on about Physical Literacy or whichever next craze does the rounds. My experience is that much PE teaching is of no higher quality than when I joined the profession back in the early 80s. Ofsted talks about good lessons being about thinking skills, independence, collaboration and leadership but these are often not promoted in a structured and effective way in the PE that I see. In fact, in recent training courses that I have led, some delegates have not been aware of different thinking skills and how their teaching styles impact on their development.

Perhaps if we spent less time debating key strands, 'games sense', 'health focus' and 'physical literacy' but rather concentrated on promoting good quality teaching and learning we would actually achieve more.

Another great worry of mine is that in some schools the only PE that exists at KS4 is accredited courses. If pupils do not want to do GCSE they are forced into B Tech. I've seen hoards of bored students sitting at computers completing assignments just to get themselves and their school a few more points on the league table. To me this a is a million miles away from PE as I understand it. PE is about physical activity - let's get back to basics and get them active!

Plus Ca Change...

 It has been an interesting couple of months from a professional point of view - a mixture of teaching and training courses in Britain, interspersed by a couple of weeks coaching and mentoring of teachers in a girls' church school in Malta. These various experiences have reinforced a number of things.

Although some specifics have changed over the years, the teaching and training courses have confirmed that the basic issues that teachers have to address these days are much the same as they always have been. The challenges around additional targets, admin and paperwork are certainly very real, but the actual skills required to engage, motivate and help pupils behave appropriately are the same as ever. Similarly the strategies and qualities required to manage department members differ little. It is interesting that anecdotes and experiences I share with colleagues when delivering training seem to resonate as much as they ever did.

The beliefs that if you can teach you can make a food fist of most subjects, and also that people and issues are often much the same wherever you go was highlighted on my recent Malta trip for Creative Education. As I have experienced in England, teachers in a coaching/mentoring context were initially wary. However, once they realised that our job was simply to help them to move on by improving the quality of teaching and learning, and perhaps more importantly, we were just people like them, many of them were keen to get stuck in and try out some new strategies. As always, it was fantastic to see them grow as professionals and to experience the positive response from the students in the school.

As part of process I modelled some learning activities whilst delivering an economics lesson - not really my speciality given that I am a PE teacher! I have to say that during the planning phase I felt quite apprehensive that I had been too ambitious in the range of learning strategies I had included in the lesson. I needn't have worried in the slightest. The students responded marvellously and were able to articulate how they had enjoyed independent and collaborative learning. Given that the Maltese programme is really content heavy, many teachers struggle to see alternative ways of delivering lessons without falling behind with delivery. Whilst this is challenging it is also a great opportunity.

I look forwards to coming months being equally as busy as the previous two.