Teaching skill: How to get the most out of your pupils

Many PE and after-school clubs are fun and help keep children active. Ofsted recently highlighted some areas for development in PE including keeping pupils active for longer and teaching specific skills to help increase their ability to access activities. From our experience in schools, many teachers have told us that they worry about how to teach skills in PE is something they have difficulty with.

Teach skills in PE

How we teach skills in PE does not have to be complicated. There are many ways to deliver a new skill to a pupil but knowing the main teaching points first really helps. Of course, there are many points you can provide to improve a skill, but children can usually on listen to and remember three at a time. For example, throwing an underarm ball:

1. Stand one foot in front of the other
2. Swing with the opposite hand to front foot
3. Release ball in the direction of target

There are many other points you could add but to get pupils started delivering only three so they can self regulate and check, and as the teacher, you can mover round and correct and offer advice on these points.

Along with the teaching points are the methods of delivery such as:

Teaching methods

  • Whole Practice
  • Part Instruction
  • Whole part whole
  • Shaping
  • Chaining

Brian Mac has written a useful article giving a short account of the teaching methods above. Different methods apply to the different skills you may be teaching depending on how complex they are or the risk factors involved.

The most important thing when teaching skills to pupils are for them to comprehend how and why learning the skill is useful and when they might use it. Context is always needed for young learners, especially in new sports or activities.

 

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