P.E.

__P.E. In Primary! By Katie Bremner, Will Ackerley, Rob Oglivie, Peter Hicks__
__**Why is PE important?**__

The NHS recommends that children aged 5 to 18 get at least 60 minutes of ‘aerobic activity’ each day. [|www.NHS.uk] advises: ([])
 * moderate-intensity activities: this means your child is working hard enough to raise their heart rate and break a sweat, and
 * vigorous-intensity activities: this means they're breathing hard and fast, and their heart rate has gone up quite a bit

At least 3 days a week these activities should include
 * muscle strengthening activities, for example hanging from bars in the playground
 * bone strengthening activities, for example hopscotch, skipping, hopping, football, running

PE in the school curriculum contributes to the children’s exercise. It also helps their confidence and enjoyment of physical activities outside school, as they learn new skills, new games and builds their fitness. PE can boost children’s attention span, help them with co ordination, team work skills and self control. Best of all, it can be fun!

Schools can do their part in encouraging children to get exercise walking or cycling to school. Walk to School provide stickers that can be used to reward children for getting to school under their own steam, during walk to school month (October) and through their Walk Once a Week (WoW) initiative. []

Cross curricular links: For more information on the human body and how it works, see this link.

__**A little bit of exercise…Wake Up Shake Up**__

Wake up shake up is a way of integrating physical and mental health. It is a 5-10 minute activity which can involve anyone from the whole school down to a few children. A dance routine is taught to the children to a popular song. The dance moves are a way of getting the children to exercise while having fun!

Wake up shake up can be done at any time of day, but most schools who participate in it tend to do it before the children enter school in the morning and after break times before the children begin lessons again.

The benefits of Wake Up Shake Up are many, and include: Wake up shake up has been used in schools as part of children’s statutory P.E. provision, (even 5 minutes of exercise, twice a day, 5 days a week adds up!). It is a great way of promoting a ‘healthy body healthy mind’ ethos within a school, and is therefore really good to link with PSHE!
 * Enjoyment of school life and a sense of well-being (staff too!)
 * Improved self-esteem impacting on other curriculum areas: ‘success breeds success’
 * Improved co-ordination (gross motor skills then impacting on fine motor skills)
 * Improved rhythm and timing ( this has helped with music and dance lessons)
 * Improved concentration and application to tasks immediately after the brief exercise session
 * Increased stamina
 * Improved behaviour ("when done at the end of lunchtime, playground squabbles are forgotten and afternoon class is much better")
 * Improved hydration (children get thirsty and WANT to drink more)

Have a look at the following links to get an idea of how wake up shake up could work for you!

@http://www.thegoodlife.uk.net/lets-get-physical/wake-up-shake-up.html

@http://www.bostonwestprimary.co.uk/page_viewer.asp?page=Wake+Up+Shake+Up+videos&pid=84

@http://youtu.be/AKlid_e-loE


 * __P.E lessons - not just running around for 50 minutes!__**

Physical Education is important for children of all ages. Not only does it help to build individual skills such as catching and throwing, running and jumping etc, It can also help children to improve their ability to work together as a team. Compeition is a part of life and team sports like football, cricket and rugby, as well as individual sports like tennis, swimming and athletics are all good opportunities for children to learn about winning and loosing and sportsmanship. Which is why it is such a shame when P.E lesson time is often replaced with a sports coach/skills coach who comes in from outside the school to take the lessons, these will appeal to those who already have an interest in the sport but can sometimes forget about other aspects of P.E, concentrating on the 'what and how' and forgetting the 'why'.

Here is an outline of a P.E. lesson, not tailored to a specific sport, but concentrating on the different stages and aspects of a P.E. lesson.

-At the start of the lesson, despite probably not being in the classroom, it is still a good idea to give the children a learning objective - this will mean that the children will have an aim, or at least something to try and achieve during the lesson, this could be a skill such as 'learning how to throw a ball over-arm and under-arm' or it could be knowledge based e.g. 'to learn and understand the basic rules of cricket'. This means that the 'education' part of P.E. is covered right from the start.

-Warming Up/Stretching - This is an important part of the lesson. Exercising without warming up increases the risk of injuries or muscle strains. A simple warm up exercise such as 'traffic light' game not only gets the children ready for exercise, but also focuses them on the lesson.The warm-up exercise can be seen in the same way as a mental starter in a maths game and could be tailored to which activity or sport you have planned for e.g. if the sport requires lots of running, make sure the children are prepared for it. If it requires throwing and catching, the activity could include something that involves using hand-eye co-ordination like 'hot-potato' etc.

-Main Activity - This is where the lesson objective will come in. If it is to practice catching and throwing you may have the children in groups of pairs throwing a bean bag or ball to each other, differentation is usually quite easy for these types of activites - get the children to stand further/closer together etc. It is important for you to model how to do each activity correctly i.e. correct position, stance, movement etc, so that they can learn the skill properly. Depending on your how much time you have and the ability of your class, you could concentrate on around 3 key skills, or rules per lesson.

-Plenary/practice - Towards the end of the lesson, or after going over different skills or rules you will want to add a context in which they can practice the skill. This may be a full version of the particular sport, however this can often lead to the children concentrating more on winning the game than actually concentrating on the skills they have just learnt. To overcome this, it is a good idea to tailor the game to the skills e.g. if your lesson was based around short passing in football, add a 'two-touch' rule for the game - this means that they will have to use the skills they have been practising and gives you an excellent means of assessing the level of their ability.

Warming down - Perhaps not a vital part of the lesson, but if there has been a lot of running or jumping involved in the lesson it would be a good idea to introduce a warm-down at the end of the session, even it just means calming down the children before they resume normal lessons in the classroom. More importantly if the session has been particularly long i.e. a school team match it is important that children are encouraged to drink plenty of water as to avoid dehydration.

Summary - Make sure your lesson has a purpose, make sure that it has a structure and the children are aware of what they trying to learn, and most importantly make it fun and interesting!

__**PE at Key Stage 1**__

PE for reception through to Year 2 is focussed on developing skills. They should learn to ‘send and receive a ball’ (ie throw, catch, and kick!) and other skills that will prepare them for playing team sports in Key Stage 2. They should be playing simple games at this stage, and coming up with their own. In Gymnastics, they learn about finding a space, developing balance, using different apparatus. Children should be able to put together a simple sequence, with a start, middle and end. Swimming is on the national curriculum for Key Stage 1 but is more commonly taught from Key Stage 2 onwards (Manchester Schools Swimming Programme, for example, is for Key Stage 2 only) []

Active play is the Key Stage 1 resource from the Sports Trust. It is replacing the ‘top start’ activity cards that we’ve been using in our PE sessions at Uni, but runs along similar lines. Resource packs include laminated cards that tell you the resources needed for each activity, and suggests simple games to play with them. The Sports Trust has training available on how to run Active play sessions.

Finding space: Younger children may not understand what is meant by ‘find a space’. Coloured rubber dots on the floor for each child to stand on will help stand at the right distance from each other. Setting a boundary (eg the edge of a badminton court if there is one marked on the hall floor, or marked out in cones) can help stop children running into the wall if they get carried away.


 * Activities for Key Stage 1:**

Traffic light game (red for stop, orange for walk, green for run) can be adapted in a million different ways!


 * ‘Beans ‘ is good where there is less space and as a warm up. Children act as appropriate bean, eg chile bean (shiver); runner bean (run on spot); broad bean (stretch arms out); bean sprouts (stand on tip toes and be as tall as possible); baked bean (curl up in a ball on floor); French bean (hands on hips, say ‘oo la la!’). Frozen bean (stand still as possible) and ‘has been’ (lying as if dead on floor) could be used if using as a warm down activity.
 * Circuits, combining different activities for them to try. Theme it to make it even more fun, eg a Pirates theme could involve walking a plank (ie bench) to improve balance skills; knocking coconuts down from a tree (throwing bean bags underarm at targets on a chair); crawling through the undergrowth of a rainforest (under a net); crossing a crocodile infested river or shark ridden lagoon (travelling from one rubber mat to another without falling off).

Here are some links to the National Curriculum for P.E. and a few websites which offer a good range of activites for using in your lessons, or for you to modify.
 * __PE Lessons - Links__**


 * Please feel free to add any good websites or activities you come across!**

National Curriculum Key Stage 1: []
 * National Curriculum links:**

National Curriculum Key Stage 2: []

[] [] for a useful list of games by age group. __**Olympics:**__
 * Resource Websites:**

The 2012 olympics will be running from 27 July to 12 August 2012, and the Paralympics from 29 August and 9 September 2012.

Site of the Olympics movement – has videos from previous games and facts about previous Olympics. []

The original Olympic games – a must if you’re looking at the Ancient Greeks: []

Nearer the time, [] may be worth checking for resources. Oscar Pistorius, a South African runner, swept the board at the 2008 Paralympics. If he qualifies, he is hoping to run in the 2012 Olympics. An example of an athlete overcoming barriers to compete on the world stage that could be used to inspire children in their exercise. [] [] The ‘learning zone’ on [] has lesson plan ideas incorporating the Paralympics into PSCHE and other lessons.