Academic appears on Teacher Talk Radio

Dr Gary Stidder from the School of Education, Sport and Health Sciences appeared on Teacher Talk Radio last week, chatting with David Brown on the Friday Late Show.

Dr Stidder is a Principal Lecturer and course lead of our (Secondary) Physical Education PGCE.

Issues discussed included:

• the impact Covid-19 and lockdown of schools had on rising sedentary behaviours
• the low status of PE in schools and its minimal curriculum time
• limited PE provision outside of traditional team games
• the lack of fit-for-purpose indoor teaching space in some schools
• the high numbers of children unable to swim 25 metres when they leave primary school
• the rise in childhood obesity.

You can listen to the show on PodBean and the Teachers Talk Radio Website – Dr Stidder joins the show at three minutes in.

Dr Stidder also spoke about his vision for physical education as a core subject in the secondary school curriculum. He said: “My vision is that there must be a qualified physical education specialist teacher in every primary and junior school. Swimming should be taught in all secondary schools as well as primary and junior schools.

“The PE curriculum that is not dominated by traditional gender-stereotyped, sex-segregated, competitive team games which is often informed by extra-curricular sport and based on teachers own interests, beliefs and personal experiences. A PE Curriculum should offer choice and voice to pupils and provide breadth, depth and balance of experience across the activity range to include alternative team games, artistic, aesethic, athletic, adventurous, aquatic, aerobic, anaerobic activities as well as adapted disability games.

“A PE Curriculum should have the holistic development of all pupils at its core and embed values such as fairness, trust, responsibility, respect, equity and inclusion and an appreciation of diversity in society that promotes healthy, active lifestyles as opposed to a sport-based, multi activity PE curriculum that has performance-related learning outcomes.”

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