Willand PE in lock down

A summary of one solution to the school closures

On Wednesday March 18th, 2020 the UK’s Prime Minister announced that all schools would be shut from Friday afternoon for at least 3 weeks.

Head Teachers around the country frantically scrambled for information, ideas and solutions to help their pupils, staff and families cope.

I realised that I would not be able to coach gymnastics at Willand Primary School the following week, so emailed the Head Teacher, Anne Hawkins, offering a solution of ‘3 x10 minute p.e. videos a week‘ to help them.

My phone rang seconds after I hit ‘send’ as Ms Hawkins responded with a ‘thank you‘. I was offering a solution to just one of her many problems. I outlined what I had in mind, and she seemed enthusiastic as well as relieved.

24 hours later and the schools still had not received guidance from the government.

As we were not in total lock down yet (that wasn’t announced until after 8pm on Monday 23rd March), I arranged to film two of the videos on the Saturday morning in our Village Hall. We used two of our club members, plus some other pupils who live nearby.

Ms Hawkins watched the videos, gave her approval and I planned the next 7 sessions. You can see the very first video here:

My plan divided the lessons into 3 categories:

1. Movement: Locomotor progressions.
2. Physical Fitness: strength, balance, mobility.
3. Skills: Balls and implements and how to throw, catch and apply in games.

I wanted to include things that parents and children could do together. Two Mums had asked me previously about posting short tutorials for games, one of whom had said to me, ” I don’t play catch with my son because I don’t know how and he would get bored after 15 minutes.”

I viewed this 3-week break as an opportunity for children to learn some fundamental skills and movements that would help them return to school physically better than when they left.

In short, I wanted to put the physical and education back in p.e.

You can see the outline for week 1 here:

Of course, the plan lasted exactly 1 day. Then we found out that we were in full lock down for 3 weeks, which then got extended to 6 weeks total.

Instead of filming me and a small group of pupils in the local area, I was left with my house and my 10-year old Stoic son, Jack. My long-suffering wife, Sarah, was roped into filming the videos.

Could do better

As the 3 weeks, evolved into 6 and then, finally, 16-weeks we learnt, adapted and tried to improve what we were doing. We were operating under several constraints:

1. The weather (for the first 8 weeks, it was Scorchio).
2. Three individuals being ready, willing and able to film at the same time. Those of you with families at home may empathise that all was not ‘sweetness and light‘ just before filming time.
3. Technology! The first thing I did was to order a clip-on microphone to improve the sound quality. Phone storage, broadband upload speeds and human error (Sorry, forgot to turn the mic on) added no little stress.

Time seemed to be against us, despite being in lockdown, and we tried to film the videos in one take.

This had the advantage of showing real-life mistakes and spontaneity. It had the disadvantage of me failing to either teach the people in front of me or making the object of the lesson clear to viewers.

Getting in the swing of things

Several weeks after starting, and Willand Primary School had embraced the Google Classrooms technology. I had been uploading the videos onto the Willand PE Playlist but we didn’t seem to be integrated with the teachers.

I improved this by emailing the separate lessons to the school with a synopsis a week in advance. This gave the teachers time to review and use.

From week 7, we could use a few other pupils who lived in our road and were still off school. This added variety, conversation and unexpected feedback into the lessons. The videos show me teaching and adapting which is useful for other teachers.

We could now show pupils in year 3, 4 and 5 and occasionally year 1. This was better for the pupils and teachers, rather than just watching an ‘older boy‘ do all the demonstrations (and an even older man).

Guest stars

Speaking of guest stars, I was in weekly contact with my GAIN colleague, Physical Education teacher Andy Stone. He was doing a similar project for his secondary school in the USA.

I added his videos to the Willand PE playlist as they are superb for children aged 10-14. His teaching of movements and the systematic progressions are something that are missing from PE lessons here in the UK.

I also spoke to Vern Gambetta several times and Greg Thompson, who we also featured. Their insights and support were much needed practically and emotionally.

And finally

Tomorrow we film our last lesson: #48. 16 weeks after I first contacted Ms Hawkins.

I would like to express my deepest thanks to Ms Hawkins and all the staff of Willand Primary School for their support and encouragement. Thanks to the guest stars of the videos for their enthusiastic participation. Thanks to Willand Village Hall for offering their venue when we were allowed!

And a very special thank you to my wife, Sarah for filming and to my son, Jack for being the demonstrator in every video. Without them we could not have provided all these lessons.

I hope that the current and future pupils of Willand can use these videos ongoing and help them become physically literate, active and fit for the future.