Spreading the joy of movement: Willand School and Kelvin Giles

“We spend the first two years of their life trying to get them to move and say Dada, then spend the next 16 years telling them to sit down and shut up.”

Kelvin Giles gave a great 2 hour presentation to the staff at Willand School last Friday as part of their back to school training.

He explained the benefits of moving well and moving regularly, and got the staff to take part.

Primary school teachers are in the fortunate (or unfortunate) position of having to be “Jack of all trades“. Whilst some may have a “sporty background”, others are artists, linguists or scientists. This was an opportunity to show how physical activity can aid learning and give the teachers some practical ideas on how to implement it.

As Kelvin said, p.e is the first subject to be cut when the gymnasium has to be used for exams, nativity play practice or if the kids go to the zoo for the day!

Benefits of physical activity in schools

Kelvin broke this down into 3 areas, and related everything to the classroom and school environments.

1. Physical: muscular -skeletal (posture, work place absenteeism), neuro-muscular (brain and body connection), metabolism (work capacity, how you cope with daily life).
2. Cognitive: How they learn to move, how they acquire skill, how they apply skill.
3. Psychosocial: behaviour, perseverance, discipline.

(Interestingly, the session before Kelvin was by a cursive handwriting expert who extolled the virtues of physical co-ordination tasks to help handwriting. They also recommended an inclined desk to write properly,which also helps improve posture, something I have been telling the school about for a year!)

Explicit vs Implicit Learning

I have seen Kelvin present a few times before, and talked quite a bit with him. This was the first time I saw him talk about and implement these two different types of coaching cue.

It was good to see this in action. The first is a set of rules, the second is subconscious learning by experimentation. Kelvin showed an exercise on video, then got the staff to try it out. No winners, no losers: everyone was having a go. Then a few ideas like “eyes shut” or “change arm positions” that enabled the staff to experiment and challenge themselves: again no winners or losers.

The staff through themselves into the session, and it was difficult to get them to stop having fun! It was great to see how engaged the staff were. I hope this passes down to the children at the school.

This was part of Willand School’s 3 part approach to developing p,e this year. Head Teacher Anne Hawkins has put time and energy into developing this and my aim is to help support her in this work. It will benefit not only my kids, but all of those who attend the school.

Thanks again to Kelvin for delivering. Really looking forward to the full day next week in Exeter.