Teaching Physical Education in the classroom

Student Physical Education students attended a one-day conference that addressed the teaching of theory on accredited PE courses.

During the conference the student teachers, in groups, presented a 20-minute session to the rest of their cohort on an identified topic. The presented topics included:

• The Olympic Games – blessing or curse?
• Bandura’s model of observational learning theory (observational learning)
• Violence and deviance in sport; Sport, sponsorship and the media
• Discrimination in sport
• Sport, Sponsorship and the Media
• Sportsmanship, gamesmanship,
• Performance enhancing products – reasons for, consequences of and solutions to the problem of drugs in sport

Secondary Physical Education PGCE and School Connect course leader Dr Gary Stidder said: “It is standard practice for physical education teachers to teach theoretical principles as part of accredited PE programmes in school. It is therefore imperative that is also an integral part of their training both at university and during their school-based training.

“There are increased expectations for trainee teachers of physical education to upskill themselves during periods of school-based training by gaining experience of teaching theoretical classroom-based PE and implementing the pedagogical university-based training of teaching physical education in the 14–16 and 16–18 age range.

“The study of sport rather than the practice of sport has, in some cases, provided the basis of all programmes of physical education for pupils in an attempt to bolster the place of physical education on the academic curriculum. The conference was designed to help the student teachers develop their subject knowledge and have the confidence in presenting in a classroom.”

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