PA / PE & Health

Claire K and Jennie ran this afternoon's professional learning session focusing on aligning our CIP with the NZC. Our first task was to read over our old statement, written several years ago, and pinpoint the important key ideas from this. Our old CIP statement read:
"Through involvement in Wanaka Primary School's Health and Physical Education Programme children will develop the knowledge, skills, attitudes and motivation to make informed health-enhancing decisions and to act in ways that contribute to their personal well-being and the well-being of other in the community"

We moved into groups and brainstormed ideas for a new purpose statement to reflect how we see PA, PE and Health fitting into our vision. These statements were handed in for the PA / PE & Health team to work on and further develop a purpose statement that we all had input into. We look forward to seeing this statement in the not too distant future.

Jennie presented the year overview of proposed sporting and coaching events. What a busy term this has already been and it looks set to continue for the rest of the year with a bit of respite in Term 2 at least. Swimming has been the focus for this term with Bikewise week as an added bonus. Next term coaching for hockey is set for either week 1 or 2 so teachers may decide to plan a fundamental skills programme around 'striking'. Term 3 is our skiing programme and xcountry and we had some discussion about alternative sports such as ice skating, curling and luge in Naseby. Jennie is going to investigate this option further. Term 4 we practice for athletics and tee ball competitions.

Each classroom has a 'Developing Fundamental Movement Skills' book and to encourage teachers to look through this an activity was set to break down the main sections of the book and to list possible activities in each of the areas;
Locomotor skills: walking, running, dodging, jumping, hopping and skipping
Stability skills: landing, balance, rotation
Manipulative skills: throwing and catching, striking with the hands, striking with the feet, striking with an implement

Another excellent resource in everyone's classroom is the KiwidexManual.
This PL session gave us the opportunity to explore these 2 books and to discuss some activities that have already been tried and are successful and some that need more work.
This is a huge curriculum area with a dedicated team who will keep us well informed about new ideas, and motivate us to give it a go whether that be power walking, snacktivities, or developing units of work based around the fundamental skills.