Last week, a Primary School teacher told me of their experience teaching tag rugby to year 3s (7-8-year-olds),
‘We practised passing down the line a lot but, when it came to the game, they didn’t know what to do.’
Compare that to the advice given by the Department of Education and Science:
‘At about nine years of age, they may be ready to play many simple games, with three or four a side, with the object of scoring points and goals.’ (1972).
Developing spatial awareness through educational games
Have children developed a greater sense of gameplay in the last 50 years? Can they be put into competitive matches of 7+ a side because they are more skilful, athletic and tactically aware than the children of the 1970s? Is physical education being taught that much better at Primary School?
In my experience, no. Children love playing games but they still need the time to develop (you can see how these year-3/4 children are learning the basics but need help with movement).
Again from the DES,
‘Children at a young age play alongside each other rather than with each other.’
Trying to teach pupils sport-specific skills or rules without having the foundations of games sense and skills in place often leads to frustration among pupils and teachers alike. Many sports clubs teach only their sport and ignore underlying movement patterns (physical literacy for want of a better phrase).
Example 1: The overhead tennis serve.
This is a highly complicated skill requiring the use of both hands and an implement, before even
thinking about accuracy. Teaching this to year-one pupils is likely to result in failure for many.
Before attempting this skill, the pupils should be able to do two things:
1. Throw overhand properly (contralateral leg and arm, shoulder and chest rotation, elbow and
wrist lag behind hip rotation).
2. Throw and catch to themselves using the non-dominant hand (for the toss-up).
By working on these two throws in the early years, amongst other skills, when it comes to time to try this complex skill, they have a chance of success. The alternative is to put the racquet and ball in their hands and let them try and work it out. This may lead to success for some who possess the underlying skill or get lucky, but many will get frustrated and stop. Especially if they only have a few attempts each due to time/ equipment shortages.
An example of doing some general ball basics can be seen in this video.
Working on ball accuracy and striking: general before specific.
Primary school p.e. is the perfect place to teach this physical literacy and that enables ALL children to learn how to move. This builds their confidence so that they can play sports if they choose or have the opportunity to do so.
What has happened to physical education teaching in the last 50 years?
Unfortunately, the dismantling of the teacher training syllabus that now leaves them with 4 hours of Physical Education training, has created a wasteland of well-meaning teachers who lack confidence and knowledge. This has opened the door for outsourcing to sports coaches who try to teach their sport to children at too early an age.
National Governing Bodies (NGBs) are desperate to ‘increase participation,’ and have the resources to offer beleaguered Head Teachers looking for a solution to a problem they do not understand.
Children queue up to learn rules and terminology rather than move, learn, and have fun. The teachers are given colourful ‘flash cards’ and ‘resources’ that they can read from.
But, if they don’t understand the premise behind physical education, then the chances of children learning are haphazard: a few will get better, some will get better DESPITE the lesson, a few will misbehave and most will come away a bit tired (optimistically) and have learned nothing.
Each NGB is fighting for a piece of the pie so they try and recruit early to get ahead of the other sports. The poor children (and parents) are then caught in the race to specialise early. This is problematic for two main reasons:
There is no evidence that specialising early leads to success at an adult age.
By focussing on sports rules, only the early developers and those with exposure elsewhere ‘succeed.’ Everyone else gets disheartened, bored or finds something else to do.
How sad is it to hear children say, ‘I’m no good at sport,’ at 8 years old?
They shouldn’t be good/ bad, they should enjoy playing games. And that’s where Educational Games come into play.
Helping Children Develop Their Games Sense
Using balloons to help learn how to receive objects
Premise: skill development and decision-making for games players are interlinked and should be
taught together.
By using a framework to operate from, teachers can plan lessons easily and allow pupils to be more involved, and creative and learn at their own pace.
Playing specific games requires the learning of often complicated rules that require the child to
memorise as well as trying to control their own body, control an implement and deal with opposing team members.
Developing the children through Educational Games means that they are then able to learn sport-specific skills and apply the rules more easily if they choose to participate.
Outline:
Below is the framework for teachers to use to plan their lessons. Each workshop I run draws on different aspects of this framework to show how it can be used in daily teaching.
I teach different lessons depending on the age/ stage of the children and explain which aspect I aim to develop in each lesson.
The aim is for the teachers to see the overall strategy, see how it is implemented in a single lesson and understand how to develop the children from there.
Movement underpins every sport
Every lesson has some movement aspect in it: the children can not be too physically literate. There are nine themes that I use (based on Laban’s work) and they can be integrated into every lesson.
Instead of a series of drills that have to be memorised, the children get to develop their own patterns through some guided discovery, exploration and solving of tasks. This requires less demonstration/correction from the Primary School teachers (much to their relief).
One of the reasons that children struggle with physical literacy and games sense is that the teachers lack the confidence to teach them. Every teacher can read and write, not every teacher can throw, catch, skip, run, jump and strike a ball.
It is very rewarding to coach children and see them develop. It is almost as rewarding coaching teachers and seeing them grow in confidence as they realise there is more to physical education than rules, queues and shooing chickens.
After filming 72 PE videos over the last year, here are some thoughts.
To paraphrase Admiral Ackbar in ‘Return of the Jedi’: “It’s a wrap”!
Our final PE video was filmed and edited last week: #72. We initially started by planning only nine when I first contacted Willand Primary School 50 weeks ago. None of us knew how traumatic and disruptive the next year would be.
For our last video I recruited some friends and colleagues from around the world. Each of whom coaches with a different style and manner but they all share a consistent message: we want to help the children get better.
Our last (and best) PE video.
Three lessons learned
Planning is essential: we decided to do 10-minute chunks around the 3 themes of movement, physical fitness and skills. This gave the framework from which we could expand. The teachers and pupils could then use those chunks as stand-alone sessions or as part of a bigger lesson.
Technology helps: a better camera, tripod, microphone and editing software meant that the videos in Lockdown 3 looked and sounded better than those first 9. Having captions and links broke up the boring sound of my voice. We could not have done this 10 years ago (on our budget).
It’s hard work overcoming the counting paradigm: We avoided giving simple tasks that are easy to count and record. We seemed to be alone in this endeavour as the curriculum and other NGB videos were obsessed with ‘getting a score’. Schools liked sharing one-minute, simplistic tasks such as catching a pair of socks as many times as possible in a minute and writing it down. This counted as a ‘PE lesson.’ UGH!
Our lessons were about exploration and discovery and implicit learning: things that require patience, diligence and good teaching!
Unfortunately, having been a home schooling parent this year, education seems to be very mechanistic in all areas. My son had to read a poem and do a comprehension quiz: he got 10/10 but had no idea what the poem was about. He read the questions first and then searched the poem for the answers.
This same, limited, approach is endemic within PE. Teachers want numbers and so reduce the learning and task difficulty accordingly: plank for 5 minutes anyone?
You can see the improvement in our loyal video subjects over the last year: the tasks and lessons inspired them to practise on their own, even if they were shy on camera. That has been the best thing for me.
The Prime Minister announced Lockdown 3 at just after 8 pm on Monday night. At 0551 on Tuesday morning I had an email from Miss Hawkins, the Head Teacher at Willand Primary School, asking me if I would produce some more PE videos.
‘Of course,’ I replied. So, here we are again. Another series of videos designed for parents and pupils who are homeschooling for 7 weeks at least. (Our previous collaboration won an award from the Youth Sports Trust).
The Framework
We upload three 10-12 minute videos a week in this sequence.
Video 1: Movement
Video 2: Physical Fitness
Video 3: Skills and drills.
Everything is done with the equipment -poor parent and child in mind. We sometimes show how to make your own equipment in a Blue Peter style.
An example of the new format
The content is fresh and varied and we set up a structure within each class and then show some ideas of ‘freestyling’ where children can build on the ideas we give and develop their own routines.
We are encouraging creativity, exploration and fun rather than just dish out sets/reps and endless minutes of planking.
What is different in 2021.
We have introduced some changes to the format based on what we learned after the last series of lessons.
1: Trying to link and progress between different content. Now we have a library of over 50 videos we can link back to previous lessons and reference them.
2: Adding titles, texts and links within the videos. Better editing software has allowed me to do this. I have paid for ProDirector plus and edit on my phone.
3: Better Audio-Visual equipment. Everything has been upgraded since March 2020. My Motorola phone has much better storage as well as cameras. A new tripod and remote microphone have also been essential.
4: Adding quizzes, fun facts and top tips to break up the lesson and help retain the children’s attention.
We have still not gone ‘viral’ and many pupils don’t watch them, but those that do have been commenting in class. When I see people on our once a day allocated walk outside, they often tell me how they are using the videos.
These videos are imperfect but they are up and running and accessible for the pupils.
If anyone wants the pdf of the lesson outline, please email me.
Jumping for joy; when was the last time you did that? What about Jogging for joy? Hardly sounds the same does it?
I did 11,000 steps today.
I recently heard two people talking about their exercise regime. Everything was counted. They count calories, they count steps, they count miles and they count lengths in a pool.
Their measure of progress was to do more of the same, count it, and then share it on Strava. They can then compare themselves with all the other hamsters.
Were they happy? Sure didn’t
sound it like it, they used phrases like, ‘I
dread it, but feel better afterwards.’ Or, ‘I don’t want to do it, but I think I ought to.’
‘Where do I sign up?’ I didn’t ask.
The daily grind
I am looking forward to getting home and spending time on the treadmill.
Commute, work, commute and then relax by spending time on the treadmill.
Compare that to a dog in the park. Endless energy, running around, chasing balls, leaves, cats and sniffing things. Children do that, without the sniffing. They are playful and happy, if given the chance.
Bastards- let’s stop all that ‘larking about’ as one parent said to me. She wanted her 12 year old daughter to grind out tough strength and conditioning sessions because she was trying to climb up tennis rankings (another pointless measurement).
Let’s drive our children to school and then give them fitbits to measure their steps. Let’s foist our adult insecurities onto our playful children.
Alternatively you could explore the joy of movement with your child or dog:
Go upside down
Go backwards
Climb things
Go over and under things
Skip, jump, hop and leap.
Pick things up and carry them or throw them.
Forget competition and comparison; try to explore what your body can do.
The joy of performing a new skill and trying things out can not be underestimated. Your children won’t get a certificate at our gymnastics sessions, but they might just have fun.
Fun is what seems to be what is missing in life ( I have put some ideas on a YouTube playlist, ‘The Joy of Movement’ have a look.)
If you concentrate on making shapes and changing shapes, you will never have to worry about getting in shape.
Why are teachers and coaches still using the plank?
One species takes over
I have no idea when this exercise was introduced but, much like the Grey Squirrel, it has eliminated its predecessors and become the dominant species.
I was coaching my ‘Strength and Co-ordination’ group last night and I asked them if they did the plank at school and how teachers progressed the basic exercise. Archie: “They get us to run laps in between.” Oliver: “They just make us do it for longer.” At some point, these teachers will go on a conference where words like ‘disengaged’ are used.
Progressing Core Training
Lack of core strength is apparent
I never use the plank when coaching, repeat never. I would lose any last shreds of integrity if I asked the children to do a pointless busy work task that I myself would never do. Instead, we do bracing combined with movement.
Last night, the ‘core training session plan looked like this:
A: Discuss plank, why do we use it. What does it look like? B: Show front support, side support, back support as a more challenging task. Ask them why it is more challenging. C: Show heel slides (we use these frequently) and show it relates to the supports. D: Split into pairs, ask them to come up with a similar sequence for squats. Come up with the simple variant, the intermediate variant and the CRAZY variant. E: Get them to show each other and ask when they might use each. E.g. coming back from injury do the simple task.
Moving and bracing examples
They set the sets and reps. What we got from this was: 1: Decision making 2: Interaction with peers, including discussion, demonstration, corrections and feedback (and laughter). 3: Imagination and creativity. 4: Autonomy and leadership. 5: Quite a lot of strength work in a short time, without me having to tell them to ‘work harder.’
Conclusion:
None of this looked ‘perfect’, yet the athletes were doing the work themselves. I gave them hints and a framework, they cracked on with the task. If you are a p.e. teacher or sports coach prescribing the plank, ask yourself “What could I do better?”
If you are interested in learning more about this type of Foundation Strength training, we have 17 spaces left on the GAIN Deep Dive with Vern Gambetta, in Uffculme, Devon in January 2020.
It is just applied in a different context. Whilst we can get caught up in the Xs and Os, or the latest buzzwords- “constraints led coaching!”, if we look back, we can learn from those that preceded us and find out what truly stands the test of time.
In the book “Doctrines of the Great Educators”, Robert Rusk reviews the principles of 13 great education minds and how they influenced others (1). I have written some notes from the book, and added comments on their applicability to coaching and also to schools and their physical education.
Descartes
For any p.e. teachers reading this, arm yourself with these quotes when your curriculum is being squeezed. According to Steven Rose, we have Descartes to thank for the current dichotomy of mind versus body in education (2).
The seventeenth century Catholic philosopher and mathematician divided the universe into the mental and the material. It separated the mind or soul from the body. This then influenced science and medicine that divided into cognitive or somatic streams later.
As you may well be aware, the two are intrinsically linked.
P4 His first task was to lead men to self-examination and self-criticism. “herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he has not desire for that of which he feels no want.”
P5 Three stages of knowledge are described:
Opinion– the individual is unable to give valid reasons for his knowledge or assumed knowledge
Destructive or analytic stage– the individual realises he does not know what he assumed he knew. Contradiction and perplexity arrives.
Knowledge– the individual’s experience is critically reconstructed and he can justify his beliefs by giving reasons for them.
P7 “Were not the laws which have the charge of education right in commanding your father to train you in music and gymnastic?”
P19 “Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind…. Then do not use compulsion; but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent.”
P33 “The most important part of education is right training in the nursery. The soul of the child in his play should be guided by the love of that sort of excellence in which he grows up to manhood he will have to be perfected.”
P 44 “Children must be allowed relaxation, but, as in other particulars, a mean has to be preserved; deny them play, they hate study; allow them too much recreation, they acquire a habit of idleness. Play also reveals their bent and moral character, and Quintilian observes that the boy who is gloomy, downcast and languid, and dead to the ardour of play affords no great expectations of a sprightly disposition for study.”
P58 “The first duty of the tutor is to know the nature of the pupil, approving and extolling any virtuous dispositions which the latter should happen to possess and condemning in no hesitating manner which might lead the pupil into evil. He should also take care that the pupil is not fatigued with continual learning, but that study is diversified with exercise.”
P 141 “It is forgotten that these urchins who gambol upon village-greens are in many respects favourably circumstanced- that their lives are spent in perpetual play; that they are all day breathing fresh air; and that their systems are not disturbed by over-taxed brains.”
P143 “He that hath found a way how to keep up a child’s spirit easy, active and free, and yet at the same time to restrain him from many things he has a mind to, and to draw him to things that are uneasy to him, he, I say, that knows how to reconcile these seeming contradictions, has, in my opinion, got the true secret of education.”
P186 “A feeble body makes a feeble mind.” “All wickedness comes from weakness.” “The weaker the body, the more imperious its demands; the stronger it is, the better it obeys.”
“Would you cultivate your pupil’s intelligence, cultivate the strength it is meant to control? Give his body constant exercise, make it strong and healthy, in order to make him good and wise; let him work, let him do things, let him run and shout, let him always be on the go; make a man of him in strength, and he will soon be a man of reason.
As he grows in health and strength, he grows in wisdom and discernment. This is the way to attaint to what is generally incompatible, strength of body and strength of mind, the reason of the philosopher and the vigour of the athlete.”
Our first teachers are our feet, hands and eyes. “To substitute
books for them does not teach us to reason, it teaches us to use the reason of
others rather than our own; it teaches us to believe much and know little.”
P190 “Teach by doing whenever you can, and only fall back upon words when doing is out of the question. Let all the lessons of young people take the form of doing rather than talking; let them learn nothing from books which they can learn from experience.”
P246 Quoting Pestalozzi “I would go so far as to lay it down as a rule that whenever children are inattentive and are apparently taking no interest in a lesson, the teacher should always first look to himself for the reason.”
P249 “Let the main ides which are introduced into a child’s
education be few and important, and let them be thrown into every combination
possible.”
P254 On discipline which can be broken into two parts:
Regierung: orderliness or teacher’s control of pupil’s behaviour.
Zucht: character training or self-discipline.
The former serves primarily the needs of the teacher, the latter those of the pupil. Regierung secures merely external conformity, whereas the work of Zucht is not to secure a certain mode of external behaviour but rather to develop insight and the appropriate volition in the mind of the pupil.
(Interestingly, Oakland Raiders head coach John Madden made the same observations (3))
Discipline need not be repressive: “When the environment is so arranged that childish activity can spontaneously discover the road to the useful and expend itself thereon, then discipline is most successful.”
“The foundation of control consists in keeping children
employed.”
He expands further into how the translation of both into
English becomes “discipline”.
This can be misconstrued where “A well-disciplined school may be the worst possible institution for the development of character, since it may leave no opportunities for the practice of such actions as are initiated by the pupils’ own motives nor afford occasion for the exercise of self-discovery and self-imposed discipline.”
P274 “To have educative value the play of the child must not be a purposeless activity; his play impulses must be directed and controlled by the employment of definite material necessitating an orderly sequence in the feelings engendered and in the activities exercised.”
P275 “While play is the characteristic activity of childhood, work is that of boyhood. Interest in the process gves place to interest in the product. Whereas during the previous period of childhood the aim of play consisted simply in activity as such, the aim lies now in definite, conscious purpose.”
P277 “Every child, boy, and youth, whatever his condition or position in life, should devote daily at least one or two hours to some serious activity in the production of some definite external piece of work.”
P286 “The duration of a process is determined not by the exigencies of an authorised time-table, but by the interval which the child finds requisite to exhaust his interest.”
P287 “When the environment is so planned that childish activity is directed along the lines of the useful and expends itself thus, the result is the most effective form of discipline .”
P288 “Montessori has devised certain formal gymnastic exercises to develop the child in coordinated movements. She disapproves of the child practising the ordinary gymnastic exercises arranged for the adult.”
P325 “The great change of outlook in biology in the nineteenth century- Darwin’s doctrine of evolution- was not achieved by experiment but by observation and deduction.”
Summary
As you can see, all of these great minds have influenced later generations of teachers. Most of them have expressed the need for mental activity to be balanced with physical activity.
Never did they express the need for a competitive sports based curriculum, led by adults, for adult entertainment.
Thanks to Mandi Abrahams of Castle Books in Beaumaris for sending me this book.
References
Doctrines of the Great Educators. Robert R. Rusk. 3rd edition Macmillan (1965).
Steven Rose in How Things Are: A Science Tool-Kit For The Mind. p202. Ed. J. Brockman & K. Matson. Phoenix (1997).
One Knee Equals Two Feet. John Madden with Dave Anderson. Jove Books (1987).
Why the Daily Mile should not be mandatory for pupils
Kids move in many different ways
Two Primary School head teachers have mentioned the “Daily Mile” to me in the last 6 months. The first said he was going to introduce it in his school. The second asked me about it and had concerns because she didn’t want any of the pupils “dreading coming to school“.
The Daily Mile is just the latest in a series of initiatives that have been launched in an effort to combat childhood obesity and/or improve physical fitness in young people. It is easy to get swept along with the latest craze, and I would expect children to do the floss, fidget spin, create loom bands and play Fortnite as the prevailing fads of their time.
However, teachers, governors and sports partnerships should know better. They need to analyse any new initiative and see if it fits in with their underlying philosophy or strategy for physical education, rather than jump on the bandwagon. In short their end of term report should read “must try harder“.
Falling for the false dichotomy
Girls love using monkey bars
The Daily Mile research was conducted between two different schools. One had each pupil do a mile of walking or running each day, the other had their pupils do nothing extra. Guess what? Something was better than nothing!
This “quasi-experimental pilot study” has then been heavily marketed and promoted as the magic pill to solve obesity problems. So what we have is a simplistic answer to a complex problem.
But the options we have are not:
Daily Mile
Nothing
There are plenty of other ways to get children moving (see below), so why is this being promoted so heavily and is it really a problem?
I think it is promoted heavily for a few reasons that I can see.
It has a catchy title. Yes, things get launched like this simply because everyone can grasp the concept easily, even politicians. Just like the “5 a day” for fruit and vegetables which has no supporting evidence but was decided on at the end of a long day, just so the advisers could walk out with something on paper!
It is easily measured and implemented. How much effort does it take for a teacher who has had only 6 hours of physical education training ever to say “Ok kids, 4 laps round the field and then come back in“?
It is Scottish. I don’t know why this should be a thing, but Scottish MPs keep tweeting about it and therefore trying to back it. It doesn’t matter that the research is poorly designed and only one study has been done, the fact that it is Scottish means it is good!
But our children love doing the Daily Mile
Because a school or sports partnership have started this initiative, they have to then promote it heavily and show smiling kids to show it works. Some children will love it. Some children will like moving and talking with their friends. Some children will loathe it.
If the alternative means sitting on a concrete floor for 50 minutes in a compulsory assembly, then of course children would prefer to be outside.
What we have is an adult- led initiative with one movement pattern being imposed upon children. STOP.
Children like to run and jump, but in their own fashion (see video).
There are many more alternatives which will lead to an “Intoxicating physical education environment“. In Willand I have been working with the Parish Council to improve the parks based on what children like doing themselves, rather than doing miniature versions of adult activities.
If you look at how children play, none of them, repeat none of them, run into a park and say “ok, let’s do 4 laps“. That is an adult mentality.
Children run, jump, skip, hop, climb, hang, cartwheel, kick balls, throw and catch, hit nettles with sticks and jump in mud. Why not enhance that and give them more opportunities to do so?
3 alternatives to the Daily Mile
Children exploring movement
These require more work and co-ordination between schools and councils, none have a catchy title, but they are designed to improve the overall well-being of children, parents and the local community. They should be done in addition to a well designed physical education programme.
Playground painting and games. Hopscotch, snakes and ladders and other different patterns on the playground itself encourage children to move and play. Using older children to help younger children learn the games also helps social interaction. Rope skipping, bean bag throwing and balance logs are also popular.
“Park and walk”: if the kids walk to school, then their time in school can be spent on education. If the schools had a 400 metre “no car zone” then parents would have to walk 400m and back twice a day (1 mile). Why should the children be forced to do something the adults don’t? Kids would then be able to talk to their parents, rather than look at the back of their head in the car.
Improve your local park. If the local park is better equipped, then the school can take pupils there in school time and the kids will have access after school in holidays and at weekends.
Willand school and Willand Parish Council are doing two of these three. We are trying to improve the health and well being of the whole community, working together.
Other communities will be doing similar projects which are equally valid, but have not had the publicity that “The Daily Mile” has. Rarely in life does the simple answer solve complex problems, so beware of something that becomes mandatory.
A popular conception of gymnastics today is of young girls in sparkly leotards with hair kept up in tightly bound buns. This is a relatively new concept, with gymnastics originally being an all-male outdoor pursuit.
Gymnastics has originated from several different sources, but all had the underlying principle of healthy movement. The last 30 -40 years has seen a swing to competitive gymnastics which has influenced coaching courses and also teacher training. This so-called “traditional” gymnastics in clubs results in a massive dropout by children in their early teens.
With phrases like “disengagement” and “pupil-centred” learning becoming prevalent, teachers may be in the frame of mind to look a little bit deeper into our rich and varied past for ideas that were successful with previous generations.
This article shall look at the origins of educational gymnastics and also offer solutions for teachers and coaches who wish to improve the overall movement of their pupils and players.
Gymnastics and the defence of the Nation
The many wars and conflicts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries meant that all European Nations were worried about the health and fitness of their military recruits. The history of gymnastics is intertwined with the concerns of each country about possible invasions by the enemy.
Father Jahn
Frederich Ludwig Jahn was probably the first gymnastics coach. He was a teacher in Germany and he trained boys in the woods outside Berlin to help prepare them for military service against Napoleon (1). The boys performed all types of stunts using tree limbs and natural features. When they moved inside in the winter, “Father” Jahn built apparatus to help reproduce this work.
These ideas spread to other areas and competitions between the groups developed. The groups were known as “Turnvereine” and the participants as “Turners”. In the 1820s many Germans emigrated to North America and continued their practice especially in the big cities. This led to the formation of the “American Turnerbund” which had a big influence in introducing physical education to public schools.
In France in the early 1900s, a similar approach was developed by Georges Hebert. Hebert had served with the French Navy and was involved in the relief of Martinique after a volcanic eruption. This disaster shaped his thoughts on the need for physical fitness, courage and altruism.
His travels led him to observe people on different continents and he reflected:
“Their bodies were splendid, flexible, nimble, skilful, enduring, resistant and yet they had no other tutor in gymnastics but their lives in nature.” Georges Hebert (2).
He started to develop his “Natural Method” based on these ideals and also the work of Frederick Jahn amongst others. He systemised the exercises and practised them. Hebert was injured in World War I and was then asked to form a school of physical education for the French Military.
Parcours du combattant
“The final goal of physical education is to make strong beings. In the purely physical sense, the Natural Method promotes the qualities of organic resistance, muscularity and speed, towards being able to walk, run, jump, move on all fours, to climb, to keep balance, to throw, lift, defend yourself and to swim.” Georges Hebert (2).
Hebert helped develop obstacle courses that allowed recruits to perform a series of various exercises in sequence. This then became standard practice for nearly every military unit in the world before World War II (Parcours du combattant = Assault Course), more on this later.
Swedish Gymnastics and Swedish PT
Pehr Ling
At about the same time Father Jahn was developing his system, Pehr Henrik Ling was creating a series of formalised exercises in Sweden (3). He did this after studying to be a Doctor and was in interested in the health-promoting benefits of regular exercise.
In 1813 Ling was given government backing and founded “The Royal Gymnastics Central Institute” in Stockholm. Amongst other things, Ling is credited with inventing Calisthenics (derived from the Greek words Kalos and Sthenos: Beauty and Strength) and several pieces of equipment including wall bars, beams and the vaulting box.
Ling’s systematic use of a series of exercises proved popular in the early twentieth century and easy to export.
(P.G. Wodehouse mentioned them several times in his novels:
Aunt Dahilia to Bertie Wooster “Well, I won’t keep you, as, no doubt, you want to do your Swedish exercises.” (4).)
In 1909 the British Board of Education issued a “Syllabus of Physical Training” which was based on the Swedish PT system (5). This involved an enormous amount of exercises and routines which were annotated like this:
“Exercise 36 (St-Kn.Fl.Bd.) Jump to St.-Asd.-Hl. Ra. Posn. With Am. Bend. U. or swing. m.
(With heel raising, knees full-bend!)Jumping astride on the toes with arm bending upward (arm swinging midway), by numbers one!- two! And later: Five times- begin! Spring from one position to the other, bending the arms upward or swinging them midway on the upward jump and bringing the hands to hips on the downward jump. The number of jumps may be gradually increased.”
This syllabus did include apparatus work with the wall bars, beams (heaving) and vaulting boxes as well as rope climbing.
There was little or no individual development or coaching, it was designed for mass instruction and synchronised movements. The Board of Education were still using it in the years immediately after World War II.
Here is an example of how it was used outside of schools too:
Gymnastics in Britain around the Wars
After World War 1 a new philosophy of physical education was developed: informal activities and mild recreational activities became the norm. Gymnastics, tumbling, callisthenics and marching tactics were reduced further before World War II in some areas.
As the threat of war loomed once again the 1930s, the government once again took interest in the health of the young men. This video shows some of the formal work being done in a standard physical education class. Note the precision of movement, agility and also body mass of the children involved.
In the 1950s and 1960s, gymnastics on apparatus enjoyed a resurgence as many ex-servicemen went into teaching and taught activities they had done in the military (6).
The origins of Parkour
In 1946 a 7-year-old French orphan called Raymond Belle snuck out of his orphanage in French Indo-China (now Vietnam) to train in secret to avoid becoming “a victim” of the very real conflict that surrounded him. He set up a series of exercises and routines in the jungle that he practised diligently for the next 9 years. He moved to France at the age of 19 and served in the French military (7).
His son David Belle was inspired by his father’s accomplished physical capabilities and his philosophy on life. David did gymnastics and athletics growing up but found them “too scholastic” for his taste.
Rather than do sport to compete, he wanted to seek out challenges for their own sake and find new ways to move:
“And that’s exactly what Parkour is all about: move from one obstacle to the other and make it more difficult on purpose so that in real life, everything seems easier.”
You can see the inspiration for much Parkour training, school gymnasiums and trapeziums in this short video.
As David grew up in a city, his obstacles were walls, ledges and rooftops, rather than the jungle or “Parcours du combattant”. It was just the Parcours.
“The aim of the game was to adapt to just about any surrounding, always keeping in mind thatshould anything happen, what do you do?”
I see many young teachers looking for Parkour ideas for their pupils and expecting a series of moves. But, the original concept by Raymond and then David Belle is to seek challenges and solutions themselves rather than doing stunts just to look good.
(When I coach gymnastics, I always include some obstacles or apparatus for them to work on and over. Schools do have this equipment; it just needs to be put out). These 2 children found solutions to the obstacles I laid out:
Rudolf Laban and female physical educators
So far, so martial. A completely different strand of gymnastics evolved from the pioneering work of Rudolf Laban. The Hungarian born Laban was resident in the UK from 1938 until his death in 1958(8)
His background and speciality was movement through dance. He spent years observing and practicing teaching pupils’ movement. Laban’s work has been summarised in 5 statements:
That all human movement has two purposes, functional and expressive.
That dancing is a symbolic action.
That all movement of a part or parts of the body is composed of discernible factors that are common to men everywhere. These factors are contained in two overall terms: effort and shape.
That there are inherent movement patterns of effort and shape which are indicative of harmonious movement.
A system of notation that makes it possible to record accurately all movement of the human body.
The emphasis is on helping the participant discover new or more efficient or expressive ways to move. This contrasts with a “Top Down” approach of having an end skill such as a forward roll and trying to get every pupil to do that by the end of the term to “demonstrate learning”.
“Physical Education students abhor the fact that they are given too much chapter and verse; taught a recognisable end-product, and not allowed more individual interpretations.” (8).
Laban’s detailed observations and the systematic annotation were taken up by female educators such as Ruth Morison (10) and Mauldon & Layson (11) who wrote very accessible books that expanded the ideas and applied them more to the functional side of gymnastics, rather than the expressive side of dance.
When I first started researching Educational Gymnastics, I couldn’t work out why it was only female pioneers. Then I realised the huge impact World War II had on this generation and the men were away for 6 years of Laban’s work. Plus, the schools of Laban movement were dance-based and so there were mainly females being exposed to his work and the initial talk was of “movement” training rather than “gymnastics”.
Laban’s movement framework could be summarised as follows:
Movement Framework
Expansion of these ideas was piecemeal with Lancashire and Yorkshire being the “early adopters”. Several more Educational Authorities soon realised that this framework and a child-centred approach meant that teaching gymnastics was a lot easier for Primary school teachers without a specialist background (12, 13).
“The gymnastic lesson today is centred on the child rather than the exercise. The teacher tries to create a learning situation which will stimulate the child to think.” (13).
Here is an example of my coaching “Rocking and rolling” (body aspect with shapes and actions).
Whilst there was still a distinction between boys and girls gymnastics in the 1960s and early 1970s, male educators who became exposed to Laban’s methodology realised its use too (14). The combination of learning how the body moves, then applying that to using apparatus in the gym meant for a potentially rich, inventive and fun environment for the children.
“An inventive child with a certain degree of skill will produce varied work instead of movement clichés or actions habitually strung together.” (11).
However, whilst the knowledge of specific skills was unnecessary, teachers had to have empathy, sound movement knowledge and great observational skills for this system to work. So whilst it may be easier to plan structure for Educational Gymnastics than rote learning, it also requires a teacher who can think on their feet.
There was some resistance amongst male educators who were used to a “command-response” approach utilised by the Swedish PT system and/ or their military service. (Younger readers might be questioning my continued use of gender: it is relevant to the times, some context of how “new-fangled” ideas might have difficult spreading can be gained by watching Brian Glover’s portrayal of a games teacher in Kes (1969)
Note that this “creating of learning environment” and “child-centred” approach was being written about and conducted with success from the early 1960s onwards. This predates the work on “constraints led coaching” by over 2 decades (15).
School gymnastics today
1950s school gymnastics
It is for better-informed people than me to try and explain what has happened to physical education in this country since the early 1970s. Part of the problem is that even if the National strategy is well informed (take this from 1972 for example):
“In his inheritance, in response to his environment, in his biological need for activity and in his absorption in the potential of his physical frame, a child has within him a powerful drive to indulge his capacity for movement. It is the role of physical education to reveal and extend this capacity, and through it to lead the child towards his full potential.” (16).
Local Authorities Vary
For example in East Sussex, Teachers were given guidance by University lecturer and a Senior BAGA coach which dismisses the Laban based work as “an activity shrouded in a “movement mystique.” (17).
Their book simplifies “gymnastics” to 7 specific skills and recommends following the BAGA award scheme “since it has clearly defined objectives”. I would suggest that this is the antithesis of “Educational Gymnastics” and is more like “training” which is commonly seen in gymnastics clubs.
“Training is a reductionist goal: its aim is to refine an existing action, whereas learning is an expansive goal; its aim is to increase the number of potential actions.” (18).
That is just one example, but each county will have its own adviser and system of teacher education.
One underlying problem now is that teachers coming into Primary Schools receive as little as 4 hours of Physical Education tutoring. Today’s kids are being taught by teachers who have never been exposed to physical education programmes themselves.
(On a recent course I tutored, one 23-year-old sports science graduate didn’t know that the sports hall benches could be secured safely against wall bars with the levers underneath!)
Many “P.E. specialists” have studied Sports Science courses at University, rather than Physical Education. They are more comfortable measuring physical fitness than teaching movement.
Helping the teachers teach and the children explore
Child-led approach
I started learning about gymnastics in order to help my own children. Coming into it with an open mind, without a competitive gymnastics bias, or a local authority slant, I just focussed on giving the children the best opportunity to learn in a limited amount of time.
For me, the Educational Gymnastics work tied well into my own coaching philosophy developed through working with accomplished sportspeople at Regional and International level. I could see the end goal, but reverse engineering from that and doing “micro versions” of “elite” training was nonsensical.
Instead, building the child’s ability from the ground up in an environment that is both challenging and rewarding is both our club’s aim, and that of the village school where I teach. Laban’s work looks at developing movement from within whilst Parkour looks at overcoming obstacles from without. Combining the two together has been a learning process for me and our club gymnasts.
No child has yet to come to me and ask for a certificate, badge or to enter a competition. Their motivation comes from within.
The coach and teacher “Educational Gymnastics” course I developed has helped introduce teachers to the infinite possibilities that children can explore. By giving them a framework and practical ideas, they gain confidence and observational skills that they can take back to their own unique classrooms.
There is hope for us all yet, we have a rich tradition in this country, I hope this article as given you some ideas for helping your children learn and explore movement.
A constraints–led, systems based autodidactic model for soccer or how guided-discovery works: Paul . In 21st Century Guide to Individual Skill Development Brian McCormick (2015).
I have recently been asked to help coach “disengaged” girls in school p.e. I am doing weightlifting at one school, gymnastics at another. Funding is available to help these girls as they are unenthusiastic about “traditional p.e.” My experience coaching them is different from what I was told to expect.
What is “traditional p.e.”?
I keep getting told by twenty-something p.e. teachers that the sports model is failing and so we have to find non-traditional ways of “engaging” girls (I use girls, but most of what follows applies to boys too). But, once again, p.e. is getting confused with sport. They are different (or at least should be).
This quote from 1969:
Hockey team 1921
“Organised games playing in girls’ schools has been much maligned as purposelessly aping the boys’ tradition and either producing hearty hockey players or a tight-skirted, unenthusiastic, unskilled rabble…
To the age of 13 or 14 the majority of girls are likely to be keen. After this age many girls do not take kindly to hockey, lacrosse or netball; there should then be a wider scope for individual activities such as tennis, athletics, swimming, archery or dancing.”
There are two points here: are the girls opting out because they have found something which matches their talents and desires better? Or, are they deselecting themselves because they lack the basic skills required to perform a team sport such as hand-eye co-ordination, running, skipping and throwing/ catching skills?
The first is perfectly acceptable and requires schools to offer a selection. The latter is a travesty and shows we are failing our children.
Sports modules instead of physical development
Ready for p.e.
One of the reasons we are failing our children is the insistence on using sports modules in p.e. classes. When I was growing up, we had p.e. twice a week in shorts and white T-shirts. We had games once a week wearing a reversible rugby shirt. We did physical education in p.e. and games in Games.
Now, even Primary Schools are dominated by sports modules. “Invasion games” is a module, cricket, athletics, tennis and rugby are modules. These all presume that the children have underlying motor skills and that sport will get them fit.
The cynical part of me sees schools being given resources by Sporting National Governing Bodies (NGBs) that show complete lesson plans for 6-8 weeks to help teachers run p.e. classes. For the drowning Primary School teacher this is a lifeline that helps them survive for a little bit longer.
But, the NGBS are chucking resources at schools as part of a big recruitment drive to increase participation and then get more funding from Government: this then allows the administrators to keep their jobs for another year.
But, what is the point of having “Invasion Games” if the kids are unable to throw or catch, let alone run and jump as well?
I was playing catch with my 6 year old son before school one morning and 3 other boys asked to join in, 2 of whom were 8. Of the four boys, two could throw with a contralateral overhand action with some degree of accuracy. One of the 8 year olds had an ipsolateral shot putting action, the other did an underarm loop effort which went vertical and was never near the target.
Why do “invasion games” with this bunch? Where is the differentiation? To rub salt into my wound of dismay, a teacher came up and said “You are encouraging rule breaking Mr Marshall”! I wonder if that teacher is able to spot different throwing actions, let alone improve them.
Even Athletics which could be considered as teaching fundamental movements is corrupted by competition. (At every level it seems).
Rare sight in schools
In Devon, the schools competitions take place at the beginning of the Summer term, rather than the end. That means only the kids who participate outside of school are likely to be selected. The keen, hopeful young girl who learns throughout the term, misses out on opportunities that happened 6 weeks earlier. School then stops and resumes in September with rugby…
The problem is endemic and we have a generation of teachers who have not experienced quality physical education as a pupil. I recently had a Secondary school p.e. teacher on a course who did not know what the tabs underneath the bottom of a bench were: he had never run up a bench onto a frame. I promptly changed that. Now his pupils will get an opportunity to do so.
But boys like competition
“But, however much they are encouraged, games cannot altogether take the place of physical training. They have not the same corrective effect, many of them are “one-sided”, the same regular systematic and progressive results cannot be obtained from them, and apart from the difficulty of obtaining sufficient space for all to play, the greatest drawback to the use of games alone is that the weaker and less expert performer (i.e. the very man who requires most training ) is often discouraged by his want of proficiency and so ends by becoming a “looker on”. (2).
Girls like getting fit
Do you see schools that have a structured physical training programme with the goal of children being able to move properly and be physically fit? The only area where targets have been laid down and schools make effort is with swimming.
What about fitness? In Devon, the schools are given misguided advice about the intermittent shuttle run (beep) test: they are prohibited from using it. There is no measurement of aerobic fitness, let alone strength let alone co-ordination that is used across Primary Schools.
If we don’t measure it, we can’t be seen to be failing. Instead we can measure “numbers” and “hours on the timetable”. That way we can show success.
What a load of claptrap. That is an easy option for pencil pushers to pat themselves on the back. They are failing our children. No wonder the girls become “disengaged”.
Children are lazy
Let them play
Unlike the parent who told me last weekend that “kids are lazy”, I strongly believe that kids relish opportunity, challenge and boundaries. They just need support and guidance.
I told that parent to come to Willand at 3:30 after school and see just how “lazy” these kids are. The recreational field is covered with scores of children running, skipping, playing, climbing and shouting. In short, being children.
Is it the child’s fault that they are driven everywhere, and plonked down in front of a screen whilst their Mum updates her facebook status, or while their Dad checks football scores on twitter?
Is it the child’s fault that they are told to sit down in p.e. lessons so that they can “learn” about fartlek, rather than run around the park?
Solutions
Here are a few solutions:
Stop confusing sport with physical education: they are different. Sport is an expression of physical abilities, rather than a tool to develop them. Traditional p.e. was just that.
Have some balls and set some physical targets for your school. Make them public and accountable (all pupils leaving Primary school able to climb a rope, vault a box,run 800m without stopping and throw 20 metres would be a start).
Give teachers skills to observe and encourage quality movement, rather than laminated lesson plans which are about survival.
“The Teacher…must also know how to stimulate and control the pupils’ efforts so as to obtain the quality of performance that brings out the full value which the exercise has for the pupils at the particular stage of development and training they have reached. Technical skill alone will not enable him to do this: sympathetic understanding and powers of leadership are needed.” (3).
Here is an example of a group of kids aged 12-14 doing a small circuit round the gym. Whilst it may be called gymnastics now, it is only p.e. from the 1960s.
Athletic Development in action at Christ’s Hospital
Lunging and bracing
Last week I ran 2 workshops for some of the Sports Scholars at Christ’s Hospital School in Horsham, West Sussex. Whilst the title was Athletic Development, the content was all about teaching the pupils about movement.
Movement is the foundation of physical education (p.e.). So you could just say I taught two p.e. classes.
The Head of Sport Dave Messenger has previously done a Level 1 Coaching Strength and Conditioning for Sport course with me, as have 8 members of his staff. I shall be back there next month running the course for another 10 coaches.
Partner work
Here is the lesson plan for the first half of the Athletic Development Workshop. With the themes. Introduction: Why do you train? Sport is an expression of physical ability, it rarely develops it apart from the very beginners and those unfit. Get fit to play sport, rather than play sport to get fit. Task1: Skipping, forwards backwards. sideways. With partner count to 4s.
What sport skills are used? Break down of skills. Try again observing partner foot position (barefoot).
Squat practice
Task 2: Tuck sequence, hold shoulder stand for 3. Rock to stand: with partner.
How strong are your legs?
Partner squats
Exploratory rolls on floor. Squat, roll, stand. explore.
Task 3:Walking game with chaos. In 3s. Walk around, tag, no tag back. Then skipping, then running 3 steps into space.
Decision making? Spatial awareness. What happens at the end?
Bracing and supporting
Task 4:Absorbing and receiving force. Walk to brake. Jump up and land quietly. Crawling patterns. Kneel to fall, Partner lean and fall in 3s.
Partner sequence: cartwheel over, crawl under, hips up and down.
Thanks to Dave and all his staff and pupils for making me feel welcome and throwing themselves into the workshop with gusto.
If you would like me to run a similar workshop a your school, please email me to discuss.
