Tag Archive: physical education

1. How to create an outstanding physical education programme

   10th May 2016 3:31 pm 7 Comments

   “If you screw up your kids, nothing else matters”

   Greg Thompson, GAIN 2013.

   Physical education used to be about function: getting fit to help with a full day’s work and then helping with the harvest. Now its about sport.

   “A high-quality physical education curriculum inspires all pupils to succeed and excel in competitive sport and other physically demanding activities“. U.K. national p.e. curriculum guidelines.

   I have written previously about the role physical education has in the structure and well being of our society . Sadly this is still missing.

   Last year at GAIN I was privileged to listen to Greg Thompson talk about his work at Farmington Schools. He also taught an example p.e lesson. Both were outstanding. Enthusiasm and passion linked with a detailed knowledge of the correct physical developmental stages for children.

   Here are some of the key points I took.  I am trying to implement these within the courses I run, and also the work I am doing with my children’s schools in Willand.

   “Quality of design leads to user delight”

   

   James coaching youngsters

   Seth Godin. The better the design of the p.e programme, the better the children will enjoy it.

   Greg (a keen sailor) remarked that his boat has got a keel. “Unfortunately, p.e doesn’t. P.e drifts in the direction of the latest prevailing wind. Quality content is being blown off course by marketing.”

   Marketing can include “academic studies” that use school pupils as test subjects (Personal note: often the actual intervention is done by poorly trained undergraduates, rather than qualified teachers).

   Moderately vigorous physical activity (MVPA) is one such wind, where heart rate is the the only measure of work done. The “dance, dance, revolution” is another. “Fun is #1” is often the barometer of success rather than what is being achieved or giving the children physical skills for life (enough meteorological analogies now).

   The one size fits all approach is great for MVPA or sports based p.e. But, the physical education specialist is an endangered species, we are on the precipice of them being replaced by $7 hour “fun leaders“.

   “The Moderately Vigorous Physical Activity movement has lead to a generation of college professors and young teaching offspring who have lost contact with quality movement. By pushing fun as  a first priority, children’s “normal” has changed.  They expect physical education to be game playing.  Hard work is a rarity.  In our high schools, teachers fear making students in their classes perspire will lead to less students signing up for PE electives (= less teaching jobs).” Thompson.

   The erosion of quality content leads to greatly reduced contact time and devalues the work of teachers. No one has said “calculus is hard, let’s not bother” so why do we do it with p.e?

   Questions you might want to ask of your child’s school or of your own teaching:

   • What happens to develop physical competence?
   • What happens to develop skilful movement?
   • What happens to develop perseverance?

   (I am delighted to see Willand school encouraging perseverance).

   Create an intoxicating physical education environment

   The Unicef definition of quality of teaching/education states that a good physical education teacher should be well grounded in:

   • Motor Learning
   • Athletic Development
   • Social & emotional development
   • Inter-personal skills

   If you add “observational skill” then you have someone who can perform “skilled assessment“.  Does your child’s p.e teacher have these skills?

   What about following an advanced pattern that is based on observing elite performers? An example being copying throwing patterns of baseball pitchers for primary school kids. This is an “error model” (see Greg’s comment below).

   Instead, we should ask “Is there a known pattern of steps on the way to advanced?” We can then set task constraints to help the child get the right outcomes, remembering that the child has a role in this process.

   

   Physical education requires movement

   For example: throwing. A West Indian cricket fielder may run 2 steps from the boundary and sling the ball to the wicket keeper, planting the left leg and shifting weight forward, rotating the trunk first, then the arm following through.

   The key point is the lag time between trunk rotation and arm movement, so that is what the p.e. teacher should be looking at first, rather than the foot planting. 

   There is no point looking at lag in the arm segments if the pupil stands face on to the target and throws the ball underarm. Instead, the teacher might create a task constraint where the pupil has to straddle a line that is parallel to the wall, then throw forcefully from lines that are progressively farther from the wall.

   They can then progress to standing side on to the target, then to having a slightly wider foot stance.

   “The idea of creating a task that elicits a positive change without having to engage in a lot of verbal instruction comes out of Esther Thelen’s research on dynamic systems.

   The goal of the teacher using this approach is to pick a task that let’s the student “self organise” to the next level. So in the throwing example, a child who is not trunk rotating, begins to trunk rotate when we have them straddle the line and throw hard.

   We don’t talk about trunk rotation with 5-year-olds, we just show them how to put one foot on each side of the line and let them back up to the next colour line when they can hit the wall from that one.  The task squirts trunk rotation out.

   This is a “dynamic systems approach to development” (Esther Thelen).

   It applies to running, skipping, sliding and jumping as well. Is your child being taught these skills?
   

   Kids learn what they see

   So much for the theory, how does this translate into a living, breathing entity?

   Greg is a great believer in using a playful approach and getting the kids to self organise. However, before this happens they need to have a “mind’s eye picture” of what it is they are supposed to do.

   • Create mindfulness: devil is in the details. Give them a why: “This will make you a faster runner”.
   • Stop the class and show them the good person.“I like to pick someone to be my “Eagle” and spot a skillful/on task performer. This puts the child into the role of observer.
   • Environment must be right if a kid fails the task: do we give them another chance to succeed? Is it ok to make mistakes?
   • Try to have contact with every child in each class : constant reminders.
   • Kids learn what they see: we must walk the talk.

   If the children are taught the individual stages according to their ability, then they all progress. This is hard work though, as anyone dealing with 29 five year olds can testify! Greg has got those skills and practices hard at developing them.

   Compare this to the games based model where children are asked to remember the rules of the game “only allowed to pass backwards, must run forwards“.

   Yet they are still unable to catch the ball without bringing it into chest, or are unable to run without their arms crossing the mid-line of the chest. Carrying a ball whilst running inhibits that development further and they will have a forlorn hope of passing that ball accurately!

   Minor rant

   Unfortunately we are suffering from cultural amnesia as the latest generation of physical education “specialists” have graduated from a sports science background and have no inkling of what p.e could and should look like.

   They may well have been a “sports leader” or “T&G ambassador” at school; they would have got a nice t-shirt or hoodie and attended lots of talks. Ask them to climb a rope, or teach kids how to run, jump, skip or throw, let alone do a forward roll and they will look at you blankly.

   One 14 year old girl at a “p.e school” in Plymouth does only 1 hour of p.e, a week. In that 1 hour she goes to primary schools and tells those kids that they need to do more exercise! Yet, she is unable to do a single press up or run 400 metres without stopping: what kind of madness is that?

   The good news is that there are many willing teachers who are keen to be shown skills that help them in their class.

   Yesterday I did a multi skills club with Willand school where we looked at throwing and hopping. We based this on the rubrics developed by Greg and his team. The two teachers were excellent at spotting the stages of development and coaching the children.

   It is possible to improve the quality of your physical education programme, it requires good teachers, who have access to the correct information. More importantly, it requires vision and perseverance.

   Further reading

   • The physical education revolution starts here 
   • The 3 pillars of athletic development

2. Why PE should be more WE than ME

   27th February 2015 10:33 am 7 Comments

   “Children need to express themselves as individuals”

   So goes modern thought as we create a generation of self-centred, narcisstic kids who are unable to cope with failure when it happens.

   In the U,K. there is a perceived crisis in our society and politicians are calling it “Strivers versus Skivers“. (I wrote about discipline versus liberty last week). But do politicians know that their misunderstanding of Physical Education could be part of the problem?

   Once again the politicians and their cronies come up with PE curricula that are based on either a competitive sporting basis or a “let’s just get them moving” mantra. (This comes from the same brainiacs who think Sudoku is a tool to help understanding of Maths, instead of it being a logic puzzle.)

   Someone had the bright idea that people move when dancing, so dancing is like PE, lets get PE teachers doing dance. Dance is a form of artistic expression and is best left to those who are good at it according to the dancers themselves (see more here).

   As to girls, lots of schools have thrown their hands up in the air and think that sticking them on Wii. or a Cross trainer watching t.v. is the way forward. Compare that to what used to happen 50 or 100 years ago).

   P.E. classes in the teenage years have become less about doing, and more about “theory of doing”. Children can recite 5 elements of fitness, but can’t touch their toes, let alone do a handstand. Then we send them out to play 15 a side rugby.

   Dance, theory and games form the Pedagogical part of Physical Culture: where is the Martial and Restorative components?

   Restoring the balance

   If you look at the following two diagrams you can see how as a society we have become off balance.

   Dr Ed Thomas of the Iowa Health and Physical Readiness Alliance explains it in more detail in Chapter 6 of his book Rama

   Physical education can be divided into three basic content areas:

   1. Restorative–Techniques, obvious or subtle, that bring the body toward its optimal state of harmony and compensate for the stress of daily life.

   2. Martial–Techniques, obvious or subtle, that teach appropriate offensive and defensive responses to external aggression.

   3. Pedagogical–Sports, games, theoretical bodies of knowledge, and dance.

   The function of physical education can also be divided into three areas:

   1. Personal--The focus of this aspect is on individual health, comfort, and physical gratification. Here the self is felt to exist at the borders of the skin and the limits of personal desire. It can easily be reduced to self-indulgence but can also serve to stimulate healthy life habits.

   2. Interpersonal–At this level, one’s attention turns to the needs of others. At lower levels it may be confined to family, neighbourhood, gender, race, and so forth. Higher development brings awareness that it is the duty of all able citizens to be physically and mentally prepared to defend the highest ideals of their nation and to contribute productively to its future.

   Further growth will lead to the realization that national borders are superficial boundaries within an interdependent family of living organisms who share the earth.

   3. Transpersonal–Cultures vary greatly in the development and understanding of obvious and subtle physical techniques that contribute to the spiritual quest. Transcendence brings the uninterrupted, moment-to-moment realisation that all things are divinely One.

   

   Wow! There is a bit more to P.E. than supervising a game of rounders where half the class are sat down waiting to bat.

   Local M.P. Neil Parish equally clueless

   I asked my local M.P. to explain the following:

   “My daughter goes to a state Primary school. Her physical education lessons are often moved aside or shortened due to “timetable pressures”.

   He responded:

   “I am pleased that the Government has shown its commitment to retaining and encouraging sport in schools. The London Olympics has provided the opportunity to make a lasting legacy for sport in this country and a big part of that means encouraging more young people taking part in competitive sports.

   The Government has been clear that it wants Physical Education, swimming and competitive sport to be a compulsory part of the curriculum at each of the four key stages. Following the review of the National Curriculum, the new Programme of Study, when it comes out, will be shorter, simpler and far less prescriptive to allow for the maximum level of innovation in schools.

   The Education Secretary, Michael Gove MP, has also confirmed that £65 million of new funding will be made available for schools to enable them to provide more opportunities for competitive sport. This funding will cover the 2012/13 school year.

   It is also very important that young people have access to playing fields, so I welcome the planning framework which has introduced stronger protection for playing fields.

   Playing fields cannot be built on unless they are replaced, or Sport England agrees they are surplus to requirements.

   The framework also includes a new designation that lets local people earmark locally important green spaces for protection, including playing fields.”

   As you can see, not only does he not answer my concerns,  the emphasis is on competitive sport. You can see many notices like the one in this picture placed in his constituency.

   I also like the point about “maximum level of innovation” in schools: as if teachers didn’t have enough to worry about.

   There is nothing about quality of physical education in itself.

   Become part of the solution

   Instead of pointing the finger at “skivers” or insisting on “more competitive sport” the politicians (how many went to Independent schools with a huge emphasis on games?), teachers and parents can work together on restoring the balance.

   Physical culture and health is directly linked to the state of the nation. A flabby body will lead to a flabby mind. 

   • Our duty as parents and teachers is to set an example and provide opportunities for our children to develop. That is different from “letting little Johnny be himself”.
   • Provide restorative exercise programmes on a daily basis. Mindfulness training, relaxation, stretching are all useful. Switch off screens.
   • Get P.E. teachers educated on more than “refereeing”. That includes physical tasks such as rope climbing, gymnastics, jump ropes.
   • Look to include some martial arts and self defence class at some point: that is not pyramid selling belt collecting, but learning how to move your own body and react to and restrain others. Wrestling, judo, tai chi could all be done at a young age.

   We can make a difference together.

   (Apologies for the bad rhyme in the headline, paraphrasing Muhammed Ali.) 

3. Making athletes robust

   21st January 2014 9:47 am 1 Comment

   ro·bust

   (r-bst, rbst)

   adj.

   1. Full of health and strength; vigorous.

   2. Powerfully built; sturdy.

   3. Requiring or suited to physical strength or endurance: robust labour.

   4. Rough or crude; boisterous: a robust tale.

   5. Marked by richness and fullness; full-bodied: a robust wine.

   ---

   [Latin rbustus, from rbur, rbus, oak, strength; see reudh- in Indo-European roots.]

   ---

   ro·bustly adv.

   ro·bustness n.

   
   Robust is a word I use a lot in working with young athletes– giving an idea of a goal to work towards in the short term before we develop them further. Unfortunately, a lot of them don’t know what it means!

   Naseem Taleb in his book antifragile discounts robust and resilient because they just maintain the status quo. Instead “antifragile” means you actually develop and improve as a result of stress.

   

   England Hockey talk about “robustness training” but then send their players on endless jogs around the pitch, then having them endure 6 hours of low level “busy work” on camps.

   I work on an integrated approach, developing young players progressively, starting with a movement asessment, then intofundamental work, and finally into the full training programme.

4. The Physical Education Revolution Starts Here

   6th June 2013 1:45 pm 2 Comments

   Physical Activity, Physical Education, Sport

   

   Strength and balance

   These are the three strands that Willand School is looking to develop under its p.e curriculum next year. This is a fantastic start in recognising the different areas: putting things in place to help them is then easier.

   The UK government is fixated on “competitive sport” due to the “Olympic Legacy“. In the mean time we have a burgeoning health crisis with obesity, diabetes and heart diesease on the increase.

   Coming from Eton and a selection of other public schools, the government really shows a lack of understanding about what physical education should entail. The reality of the pressures that primary school teachers are under getting 6 year olds through the phonics exam means that that physical activity is squeezed out.

   School acquired deformities

   I have a vested interest in what goes on at this primary school and the Willand pre school: because my kids go there. I have repeatedly told the teachers that the classroom set up is inhibiting my Daughter’s physical capabilities.

   Michael Gove has no idea who my Daughter is, she is just a blip on a spreadsheet that the school is judged on. To me she is the most important thing in the world (and her brother) so I can not sit by and watch her getting affected by politicans’ ignorance.

   That is why I am offering my time and expertise to make a difference. “Think Globally, Act Locally” is the mantra I adopt.

   On Monday I did a workshop with the pre school staff on ways and means of developing the youngster physical movement.

   Expressive vocabulary is key:

   whirl        shrink                    gather          glide            leap

                    bound              spin                    crawl           slither

   scatter                     dash              soar             drag                    pause                                      crouch                     burst            whip            plunge               

   zigzag                     tremble                   skim              scurry         hop             rock                 skip             wander                toss

   twirl                  press                     push                    tiptoe                  creep                    collapse           expand                 clap             rise

   fall                          shrivel                      close            open            encircle         flutter               hover                   arch           sway         

   wander                     settle                    crumble                  twist              turn                          shatter                      run              tap             freeze

   are some words we played with.

   I am hoping to help the Primary school develop their staff training and resources to make the teachers’ lives easier

   The end goal is to get the kids healthier, happier, more active and physically literate.

   There has to be more to life than government set exams!

5. Physical Literacy/ Athletic Development: Vern Gambetta

   26th September 2012 3:18 pm 3 Comments

   “Paper is 1 dimensional; humans live and breathe in 3 dimensions”.

   Vern Gambetta delivered the first lecture of GAIN V on the importance of Physical Literacy and how it underpins everything else we do.

   (I know I have reviewed this backwards,but it also acts as a summary of everything I learnt this year).

   Gambetta’s lecture emphasised the fact that the Human body is a self organising system that is capable of amazing things: our training should reflect that, not inhibit it.

   In the rush to use Sports Science, the most important element is the Human element. Hence the quote above.

   The workout starts with the Warm Up and this should include “Linking, synching and connecting movements”… or you could sit on a foam roller.

   The training must include Force Reduction and Proprioception, as well as Force Production.

   Putting Physical Literacy into practice.

   Gambetta expanded the Physical Literacy analogy by putting this sequence together:

   • Physical Literacy (your ABCs)
   • Physical Competence (A sentence)
   • Specific Sport Skill / Technique (A paragraph)
   • Sports Performance (A Novel)

   No one tries to write a novel before learning how to read, but are Coaches and Parents trying to get their kids and athletes to do things without the correct tools?

   “Sports reflect society”. Kids have less opportunity for informal play and experimentation. PE classes are sports classes, rather than physical education.

   We need “Mandatory DAILY physical education, taught by trained EDUCATORS.”

   Another problem is the lack of sleep that teenagers are getting. Constantly wired into their screen devices, or staying up late to catch up on studies, means they don’t get enough REM sleep for development.

   Kids are not miniature adults

   Too much training + too formal= not enough play

   Kids must be able to play. This leads to better all around development: Cognitively; physically and socially. (That doesn’t mean adult organised play based on mini versions of team sports).

   Kids grow upwards first, then outwards. So trying to change that sequence through loading and lifting is damaging.

   (Dave Ellis also made that point when showing different frames and sizes of NBA players).

   These areas are crucial for development and must be included in the overall training plan:

   • Rhythmic awareness (timing, use music).
   • Directional awareness (all directions, up down, left and right, forward/ backward).
   • Visual awareness (tracking, balls, people, objects, use balloons early on).
   • Spatial awareness (where you are in relation to other players. Lining up in formations helps this).
   • Tactile awareness (the ground, other people. Judo, wrestling help here).
   • Auditory awareness (footfalls, problem of loud music in the gym).
   • Body awareness (hand in relation to foot, hand to hand, hand to head, head to foot etc).
   • Temporal awareness (jumps, change of direction, catching).

   Locomotion is key to Athletic Development

   None of these qualities operate in isolation. Instead, they sequence and operate together. The gait cycle is fundamental in this.

   (I did talk to Vern about training blind athletes who have not had the opportunity to develop this gait cycle: it inhibits everything they are trying to learn and do later on).

   Movement is a series of dynamic postures. Working on static posture such as pilates is fine, but we must look to progress and sequence these postures.

   (Posture was mentioned in one form or another in every lecture).

   Vern then discusses Assymetry vs Symmetry in posture, saying that the body is assymetrical and we shouldn’t get too hung up on this.

   (I disagreed to some extent, working with developmental athletes we are continually trying to balance front/ back and left/ right. Especially with sports like cricket who do too much assymetrical work and the kids are getting injured).

   “Skill ’em not Drill ’em”

   Another common theme in GAIN, was the emphasis on creating skills through challenging environments and scenarios. This compares to endless drill practice, where the kids get good at drills, but with zero transfer to the sport (ladders anyone?).

   Vern also used the example of tyre flipping as part of Strongman training that encourages the use of slow movements. Much slower than the demands of the sport. (Subsequent discussions have agreed on a time and place for this type of training, but not to exclusion of other things).

   One of Vern’s mantras is to “Keep competence development one step ahead of skill development”. That means the athlete’s phsycial skills are developed before their technical skills.

   (I have seen kids being taught triple jump who can not stand on one leg, can not do a body weight squat with control and can not stick a 2 foot landing).

   In young kids, running actions are quite good. Giving the kids games and races that encourage them to run around are better than doing run drills. Changing surfaces, taking off shoes (sometimes), running up and down inclines all help.

   Lessons Learnt

   For those of you (if there are any) who have read this series of blogs, you may think have gone into too much detail. I haven’t: I have just scratched the surface.

   Here are some of the other thoughts gained from informal conversations at meal times.

   • Everything is everything (Tracy Fober quote) do not work in isolation.
   • Interdisciplinary conversations and meetings are essential.
   • Sharing ideas gets away from silo mentalities.
   • There is a continuum from child development to professional athlete. Nearly every coach or lecturer mentioned posture for example. What affects the PE teacher is also relevant to the physiotherapist, track coach, strength coach and football coach.
   • Coaching is essential, drilling is mindless.
   • Testing or random number gathering? Data and information is important, but it must be relevant and not get in the way of training.
   • Don’t move up a run distance until you can at least run a decent time over a shorter one. Do you run marathons or endure them? (Randy Ballard!)

   Thanks again to roomie Andy Stone for sharing his wrestling and PE ideas and being a good training partner.

   Thanks to Vern Gambetta and all the lecturers for their insights and sharing. They are all very approachable and they are all there to learn too.

   Thanks to all the attendees who also shared and imparted their wisdom and experiences. The whole environment was one of learning and sharing by consumate professionals.

   Most importantly I have had time to take an Operational Pause over the summer and reflect on my current practices and training programmes. By trying things out and applying them I am able to consider how they fit in.

   Further reading:

   What is Physical Literacy?

6. What has happened to P.E in this country?

   4th September 2012 9:16 am 5 Comments

   Progression, Variety, Precision

   These were the 3 cornerstones of Physical education and a gym culture where “you went to learn, not to train” according to Ed Thomas at GAIN V this year.

   Dr Thomas is a mine of information on the history of P.E. (I don’t mean a GCSE syllabus) and its educators.

   He is pictured here helping Andy Stone get to grips with inverted brachiation training (read more on this from Thomas here)

   “A perfect storm of ignorance” has led to sports replacing physical culture. If you look at our “PE” lessons you will see that they are really games lessons.

   Blame it on basketball

   Schools used to have gymnasiums filled with equipment that allowed participants to do a myriad of different exercises in large groups safely. They were taught in formations and shown how to teach each other.

   This led from the floor, to above the floor training using ropes, beams and bars. This is why pull up scores were so good in those days (In 1948 the Iowa high school fitness manual stated that in order to get an A grade, you had to be able to do 44 pull ups).

   Then, someone invented basketball and the schools had to remove all the kit and allow that to take place.

   This meant that the PE had to move into the playground, which depended on the weather, and so a decline took place.

   Look at the girls in the picture on the right, and compare that to the “fitness suites” that schools insist on using nowadays where girls completely disengage and listen to ipods on cross trainers!

   Methods, Materials and Motivators

   3 things the ancients had according to Thomas. I can’t really do justice to the depth and width of his knowledge, but the detail of the systems and structures that were in place hundreds and even thousands of years ago was enlightening.

   Some key points I learnt:

   • Systematic teaching methods and organisation of big groups helps learning
   • Posture in the workplace or school classroom needs addressing (I will cover this in more detail soon). It is the foundation of all sporting movements.
   • PE assumes greater importance every time a nation goes to war
   • The link between Restorative, Martial, and Pedagogical systems is key.
   • The link between Personal, Interpersonal and Transpersonal health is also key.

   Seeing him speak and spending time with him over the 5 days made me realise how poor and shoddy PE in this country is. We have gone backwards over the last 100 years, and especially over the last 30 years.

   That is why I am running a series of workshops and offer training courses for the PE teachers who do want to try and influence the next generation. Otherwise our whole country will suffer from a lack of knowledge and ability.

   This is the first in a series of blogs looking at some of the key concepts that were discussed and delivered at the Vern Gambetta GAIN conference in Houston I attended in June this year.

   Further Reading:

   • How to create an outstanding physical education programme
   • History of Gymnastics in British Schools
   • Doctrines of the great educators