This short blog will discuss the opportunities and challenges presented by the new SHAPE America Standard 4 for Physical Education.

A few weeks ago, I observed an enthusiastic and committed pre-service teacher deliver a basketball lesson. The learning objective was ‘how to defend’ and the justification given as to why the class was learning this, was that ‘it will help you win more basketball games’. Pause and reflect - what assumptions was the student teacher making about the year 8 group that he was teaching? What was he communicating about the purpose and place of sport in young people’s lives? I’ll return to this below. 

The content of this blog might be read by some as being controversial. That is not my intention. Rather I want to explore some ideas that suggest educators might be making things worse when it comes to young people and mental wellbeing, and then apply these ideas in a productive way to physical education. 

Upgrade for January 2023

miMove versions 1 & 2 were game changers - the first bespoke app to capture young people’s physical activity experiences. Our goal for 2023 is to develop the app, to not only capture this insight data but to support, incentivise and motivate young people to be active and stay active. By so doing, we aim to leverage the best that tech has to offer to create meaningful behaviour change so that far more young people reap the benefits of physical activity.

Written a few days after England won the UEFA Women’s Euros, this blog follows closely on the publication of our recent post, marking the 10 year anniversary of the London Olympics and Paralympics. It expands on some of the same themes, in particular, the difficult relationship between elite sport, PE and youth participation. 

This article, published on the 10th anniversary of London 2012, asks questions about the way we treat mega sport events and elite athletes. At the end is a link to access a free resource that will prompt thinking and conversation about how we can do better at inspiring far more young people. 

“Play, positive experiences and affirming who we are at our core, are the actual ingredients of achieving lasting change” `
(Segar, 2022 p4)

This blog is intended to support current and aspiring subject leaders to consider how to embark on transformational change, ensuring that you deliver on your goals. Click the link here or at the end to receive our FREE support material to get you started.

If you had told me twenty years ago I would be the co-founder of an app, the prime goal of which was to make the world more active, I would have laughed on two counts. Firstly, the idea of me linked to tech when my kids still laugh at the speed at which I send a text or take a photo and secondly, because being ‘active’ was something I never thought was for me. I have often recounted reasons for my dislike of PE at school: never feeling good enough, the humiliation of hearing a drill instruction and not being able to replicate it, being picked last for sides, feeling uncomfortable in my PE kit, never having the opportunity to experience the comradery of belonging to a team, the list goes on… I decided once and for all it was never going to be ‘my thing.’ How I wish those stories just described my own experience and that of a handful of others in a subject that has long since changed…

This blog is prompted by World Health Day 2022 which comes a day after Annual World Day of Physical Activity. Awareness days allow us an opportunity to reflect on key themes, in this case, Health; in this short piece I would like to explore its relationship with PE. We have also prepared a FREE resource, Top Tips for Supporting your Students’ Health, to help apply some of the points discussed into practice. Click here to receive it.