Blog 1: Want a world leading PE department? Follow our simple 10 steps

Hi, I’m Will Swaithes. I have worked in secondary PE departments for the past 15 years and I joined the Youth Sport Trust in February 2015 as Head of Physical Education until September 2018. I have learnt that many leaders of PE sometimes fall into the trap of not following a logical pathway to creating a world leading PE department, despite their best intentions. Over the coming months I plan to produce ten blogs to share my thoughts around how and why this process works, with a step by step approach and rationale for taking it back to basics and not jumping in at the deep end! This is not rocket science and all of the successful Heads of Physical Education that I have had the pleasure of working with helped me to shape this framework. It’s aimed at secondary schools but will hopefully help any practitioner keen to reflect on their own practice and drive the changes that will have the biggest impact on students and schools. Throughout the ten blogs I plan to signpost to YST tools to help you, and will include some wider reading and resources that have helped me to think differently about my approach. Step 1: Understanding ‘why PE’? I know from experience that all too often sport enthusiasts enter into the PE profession with honourable aspirations around making a difference and have their own ideas for what they want to provide the next generation as a result of their own experience of school PE. I am aware, that for many, motivations and pressures within secondary schools quickly results in the following refocus:

• Examination group success. Due to the achievement agenda and contribution to those all-important league tables of GCSE results plus Ofsted scrutiny these measures often, wrongfully, are used as the sole tangible measure of individual or PE department success. This then has associated connectivity with appraisal, pay progressions and SLT pressure resulting in de-motivated teachers.

• Servicing little versions of you. It is easy to connect with, and have job satisfaction,

provided by the mini versions of yourself, who are turned on by sport and are hungry for any opportunity you provide. With limited time, as a result of increased marking pressures, intervention groups and school meetings, is it any wonder that when push comes to shove many of us focus on the easy to reach and ‘the rest’ fall by the wayside?

Are those the foundations for a fit for purpose 21st century offer? Is that really why we entered into the teaching profession?

Where can we make the biggest difference? What is your mission statement for ‘fit for purpose’ physical education?

Through working with a great number of PE departments as an AST / SLE and many more since joining the Youth Sport Trust, including our network of close to 100 YST PE CatalYSTs nationally, it has become clear that significant time must be invested by any leader of physical education to really unpick their personal philosophy for the purpose of PE. It is obvious that those who are making a real difference in their schools have really taken the time to do further reading and reflection following their initial education as a PE practitioner.

The diagram above helps to simplify the subject and focuses on how physical education is about so much more than a ‘basket of sports’. It explores the overarching purpose of PE, with learner needs at the absolute heart of the offer. World leading physical education develops students physically, emotionally and socially in these three distinctly separate areas.

1. Character & Employability: the positive traits, attitudes, behaviours and skills of considerate, responsible and imaginative citizens, ready to access the world of work as resourceful, responsible, reliable and collaborative employees.

2. Physical Competence: skills, abilities and techniques developed and applied to performance to tackle increasingly demanding physical activities and achieve personal bests.

3. Health & Wellbeing: thriving due to good physical health, emotional and social wellbeing and confidence, self-belief and motivation to be healthy for life.

It is increasingly important that we remember, recognise and make explicit, the learning that goes beyond improving sporting performance so that we can make the PE offer meaningful and relevant to all students. We need to ensure that senior leaders understand its value and contribution to the whole school agenda. This is especially important when we consider the national context.

Whilst physical literacy is a term that primary school colleagues have been aware of since at least the inception of the Primary PE and Sport Premium, it is less prominent within the secondary school setting. Despite being highly relevant as it’s about the holistic development of lifelong healthy and active lifestyle habits. The ‘journey’ does not end during the summer term of Year 6, in fact, it is critical that we get it right at this stage of a young person’s development. To reflect the multi ability model and range of outcomes sought from PE, check out the ‘Me in PE’ frameworks that have been circulating on Twitter and other work off the back of our Assessment without Levels working group and My Personal Best projects. If you are not already assessing more than the physical domain developed through PE then the framework below may help steer your thinking.

This may sound obvious, but it is paramount that any leader has a very clear understanding of what their subject offers and what it aims to deliver for all young people. Time needs to be taken to consider philosophically why PE is so important. The power of PE: physical, social, cognitive and affective outcomes sought and its relevance and meaning to young people and senior leaders as two discrete yet important stakeholders is the starting point and time must be allocated to achieve this. The YST Power of PE Roadshow has enabled many PE subject leaders to reconsider development opportunities and sharpen team focus. By considering the valuable outcomes that physical education offers its students it is possible to look at the impact on whole school agendas.

Here are a few important questions to consider:

1. Is you core curriculum and wider offer fit for purpose? 2. Is it relevant and meaningful to all your students? 3. Does it provide crucial added value for senior leaders at your school?

World leading physical education has so much to offer against whole school priorities but it is important that leaders of PE do not jump in at the deep end, without first committing their energy to the basics. Click here for a useful advocacy statement from the Power of PE Roadshows to help you explore and explain the true ‘Power of PE’.

Keep up to date and get involved in our work by offering your critical voice around the future of PE and joining our national network of YST PE CatalYSTs and complete the expression of interest form. Head of PE and Achievement, Youth Sport Trust (2015-2018) @WillSwaithes