Deborah Callcott

Health and Physical Education: The foundation of movement skills

Learning objectives By engaging with the text in this chapter, students will be able to: describe the sequence of motor development in the early years explain the impact of maturational and environmental variables on motor development understand the importance of implementing a developmentally appropriate movement curriculum explore the role of movement in relation to early physical, emotional and cognitive development. Mary is in her first year of teaching. She is teaching in a split Year 1/2 class and has also been asked to help with the organisation of physical education classes at the local early childhood centre, including pre-primary classes. Mary has only had limited exposure to physical education in her pre-service training. She recognises the need for developmentally based instruction in other learning areas but lacks confidence in applying this approach to physical education. John has been appointed the Year 5 teacher for this year. He has noticed that the students in his class love playing cricket; however, when he tries to play the game of cricket in physical education, most of the students (particularly the girls) withdraw to the sideline. The strong students dominate the game as many of the weaker students cannot catch or throw the ball efficiently and many of the students have little or no understanding of the rules. Samantha is a secondary-trained physical education teacher trying to get a softball team trained up for the interschool carnival. The students play the game of softball twice a week against local teams; however, they don’t seem to be improving and the carnival is six weeks away.

Health and Physical Education: ICT and general capabilities in the Australian Curriculum

Learning objectives By engaging with the text in this chapter, students will be able to: describe the general capabilities framework in the new Australian Curriculum apply the elements of the general capabilities framework to the health and physical education learning entitlement understand how information and communication technology (ICT) can be effectively incorporated into health and physical education teaching and learning practice to support the learning of students with diverse needs describe social justice principles relevant to access to ICT in terms of gender, ability, social class and ethnicity. Casey is in her first year of teaching at the local early childhood centre. The director of the centre has called a meeting to discuss the implications of the impending Australian Curriculum. The centre will be required to encourage the children to be literate across a range of areas. Casey recalls her pre-service teacher educator presented many different approaches to teaching health and physical education, but she didn’t see many ways of modelling how to use ICT for the young children in the preschool. In fact, screen time was noted as a factor in the increasing levels of overweight and obesity among children. How can play be accommodated with ICT? Alternatively, how can ICT progress children’s development around the issue of play? Jennie has been working with Year 4 this year. Although some sporty children are in her class, the gap is widening between the skilled and those disinterested in the game play. Jennie is seeking new ways of teaching physical education to close this gap in students’ attitudes and skill levels and avoid as much as possible the behaviour management challenges arising in her active lessons. How can she incorporate ICT into her teaching to engage the disinterested and poorly skilled? Is that possible or will ‘PE’ be just a ‘busy, happy, fun’ alternative to engaging students in the challenge of skill acquisition?