Jon Mortimer’s Post

Why creating an inclusive curriculum should be our professional learning priority in PE   How can we make the biggest difference?   Are we the only subject now, perhaps with the exception of Music, where more school resources are allocated to higher performing pupils? As discussed in previous blogs, Physical Education has an embarrassing history of terrible experiences for far too many children. It’s never been acceptable and we have got to face up to this and do better. All my experience leads me to believe that the vast majority of primary schools are committed to delivering a fully inclusive curriculum and, with the right professional learning support, many achieve amazing outcomes for all children.   I accept that a fully inclusive approach requires a duty to ensure that our curriculum and co-curricular provision extends our most able. But the most successful schools have shifted resources, particularly around professional learning priorities and research and problem-solving bandwidth, to support the children that need and deserve our support the most - those children who have historically failed in and subsequently rejected PE. We know that the ultimate judgement of any high-quality curriculum and any supporting enrichment provision is that every child makes sustainable progress. PE is no exception yet far too often the disengaged and disadvantaged have been left to flounder in PE lessons and become disenfranchised from enrichment opportunities. Progress requires change and that happens best when we deliberately put ourselves into an uncomfortable learning ‘stretch’. It involves an acceptance that ‘changing our minds’ is an essential part of the process and a little visit to the school of unlearning is a necessary commitment to achieving our desired personal and professional rewards. Read the full blog from Ronnie Heath, CEO at real PE, here: https://lnkd.in/e8aXgjB4 More blogs on professional learning can be viewed here: https://lnkd.in/eVXkT_7d #ProfessionalLearning #CPD #PhysEd

Why creating an inclusive curriculum should be our professional learning priority in PE   How can we make the biggest difference?   Are we the only subject now, perhaps with the exception of Music, where more school resources are allocated to higher performing pupils? As discussed in previous blogs, Physical Education has an embarrassing history of terrible experiences for far too many children. It’s never been acceptable and we have got to face up to this and do better. All my experience leads me to believe that the vast majority of primary schools are committed to delivering a fully inclusive curriculum and, with the right professional learning support, many achieve amazing outcomes for all children.   I accept that a fully inclusive approach requires a duty to ensure that our curriculum and co-curricular provision extends our most able. But the most successful schools have shifted resources, particularly around professional learning priorities and research and problem-solving bandwidth, to support the children that need and deserve our support the most - those children who have historically failed in and subsequently rejected PE. We know that the ultimate judgement of any high-quality curriculum and any supporting enrichment provision is that every child makes sustainable progress. PE is no exception yet far too often the disengaged and disadvantaged have been left to flounder in PE lessons and become disenfranchised from enrichment opportunities. Progress requires change and that happens best when we deliberately put ourselves into an uncomfortable learning ‘stretch’. It involves an acceptance that ‘changing our minds’ is an essential part of the process and a little visit to the school of unlearning is a necessary commitment to achieving our desired personal and professional rewards. Read the full blog from Ronnie Heath, CEO at real PE, here: https://lnkd.in/e8aXgjB4 More blogs on professional learning can be viewed here: https://lnkd.in/eVXkT_7d #ProfessionalLearning #CPD #PhysEd

What type of professional learning works best?    Once our ‘why’ is established and our vision is clear, ‘how’ we teach always trumps ‘what’ we teach.    As I have laid out in earlier blogs, Physical Education requires a complete cultural change if we want to provide a learning experience that will help create a lifetime positive relationship with physical activity for EVERY child. I have also argued that the only way to achieve this is by revolutionising the provision of professional learning for primary school subject leaders and generalist teaching staff. The key question then is how we start to achieve this.   The first step is to really clarify what’s most important and makes the biggest impact. There is no doubt subject knowledge is a key factor in boosting the confidence of generalist teachers and that having access to well constructed lesson plans and schemes of learning can help provide some helpful content and subject knowledge to support them in a time demanding job. However, this won’t really solve our key problems or achieve the desired outcomes we must have for every child. Only through a change in ‘how’ we teach PE, through skilful application of that knowledge and establishing a clear, coherent and repeatable methodology and successful approach, can we expect to see inclusive engagement and high levels of progress for all pupils. With this in mind, the very best supporting resources should do more than provide the ‘what’. They should also offer key professional learning by showing ‘how’ to deliver an impactful curriculum and provide proven models of delivery with progressive maps towards clear end goals for pupils. So, to be clear, access to lesson plan content and nice activities are simply not enough and ultimately won’t change anything…   Read the full blog from Ronnie Heath, CEO at real PE, here: https://lnkd.in/ePbjFujw More blogs on professional learning can be viewed here: https://lnkd.in/eVXkT_7d #ProfessionalLearning #CPD #PhysEd