Overview of the Sport education teaching resource
The Sport education teaching resource has been created to support schools in providing 150 minutes of planned moderate to vigorous physical activity per week for all years, K-10 as stated by the Sport and Physical Activity Policy. The 150 minutes must include a minimum of 60 minutes of sport per week for Years 3 - 6. (Implementation document for Curriculum planning and programming, assessing and reporting to parents K-12 policy)
The Sport education teaching resource is a program for school sport; it is not intended as a resource for planning Physical Education lessons. The program has been written based on the major characteristics of sport:
Seasons - A sport season encompasses both practice and competition. The sport programs are 5 weeks in duration and have been designed to include practice each week, competitive games and a finals series.
Affiliation - During the school sport programs, students are members of a team. In PE students are members of their class, and during a lesson or unit of learning students change groups often.
Formal competition - Sport includes formal competitions that are interspersed with practice sessions and occur in different formats.
Culminating event - It is the nature of sport to find out who is the winning team for a particular season. Culminating competitions provide players with a goal to work towards. In this program, students compete each week and also compete in a gala-day so that a winning team can be celebrated at the end of the season.
Keeping records - Records are an important part of the traditions of sport. The School program provides recording sheets for teachers to use to keep track of the scores of games each week and to use when deciding games during the finals series.
Festivity - The festive nature of sport can be seen in the Olympic Games, Soccer World Cup and even local sport on a Saturday morning. The festive nature of sport enhances it's meaning and promotes a sense of belonging and connectedness. The School sport program encourages students to celebrate their team and cheer them on during weekly games and the gala-day event. In a typical PE lesson there is often no festive element.
Based on information in Sport Education, Daryl Siedentop, PED, Ohio Univeristy, 1994
Implementation of the Sport education teaching resource
The Sport education teaching resource can be adapted to meet the organisational needs of the school.
School's can implement the units (sports) in any order they choose. You may choose to align your School sport program to be the same as the Zone PSSA sports each term. You can also have a number of sport units running at the one time to ensure there is enough equipment available. For example, one group of students may participate in Netball, while at the same time a group is participating in Football and another in Australian Rules Football. Other schools may have all students participating in the same sport.
The resource has been written based on two teachers (or one teacher and one SLSO) per student group of 35 - 40. You may choose to ask for parent helpers if there are not enough teaching staff for the recommended student to teacher ratio. You can also change the number and timings of activities in the skill development-games circuit. For example, if 4 games are too many, teachers may choose to run two games and extend the time. The timings of the Fast start, skill development games and small-sided modified games can also be changed.
Each session in this resource has been created to ensure students are participating in a minimum of 60 minutes of school sport each week, as per curriculum requirements. You may choose to extend the duration of your school's sport session. The recommended timings are:
Fast start - 10 minutes
Skill development games - 20 minutes
Modified small-sided games - 30 minutes
All sessions begin with a Fast start. A Fast start activity provides students with an opportunity to engage in moderate to vigorous physical activity (huff 'n' puff) within the first few minutes of a lesson.
Fast starts also warm-up the players and introduce a skill or movement.
A range of Fast start activity cards can be viewed on Teacher Resource Hub section of the School Sport Unit website.
Skill development games
Implement these activities as a circuit with students participating in each station as a small group in their team.
You may choose to incorporate 2, 3 or 4 skill based activities during a school sport session or even during weekly PE lessons.
Roam between the circuits while providing students with encouragement and feedback.
Modified small-sided games
Players participate in modified games that focus on skill development. As the weeks progress players also participate in small sided games.
The SAAFE principles are an evidence based framework that educators can use as a guide to support them in delivering effective game-based sport sessions.
Reflection
Players conclude the session with a low-intensity activity, followed by a brief reflection discussion. This discussion should allow the teacher and students to provide feedback about the skills learnt and the games that were played.
Teachers may encourage students to plan and share a goal for the next session.
