Scratch Coding in PE

 Recently as part of the start of a unit of inquiry that looked at coding in the homeroom I organised an introduction to scratch code in  PE. Students had also just been looking at angles in maths lessons, which was fairly important. 

In the PE class I put out coloured cones either side of the playground. In pairs the students had to write their code to get from one side to the other, eg, red cone to red cone. They paced out their route, worked out when to turn and how much etc. and recorded this on the template. 

We talked about the importance of testing code, before releasing video games, and they all were super excited at the thought that some people test games as a job! This spilled over to the activity where they spent more time than I imagined testing with their partner. One person was blindfolded and the other person walked next to them and read out the code. They modified the code as needed. 

When they were happy with their code they then swapped sheets with another group and tried out their code - again 1 blindfolded, 1 reading the code. The follow up lessons with the homeroom teacher was then using scratch on the computers to make the character move around.

Bikes for Education - Service Learning

Like many cyclists during Covid lockdowns, I have benefited so much from Zwift and all the opportunities for group rides and races, to the stage that it could be called an addiction! Scrolling through different events, before then choosing the 3R Saturday Selection race has been a regular habit of mine. One day reading the blurb about 3R, I started digging further into the work of World Bike Relief, especially in how providing bikes to help students get to school results in higher academic achievement. It really resonated with me and the situation most students face here in Madagascar.  

As a result I set up a service learning project with ten grade 9 students, which we named Bikes for Education. We were donated some old bikes that were in a very bad state and we have spent the year learning all about bike maintenance, as the students have been repairing them. They have learnt to change the tyres and chains; maintain the brakes; replace cables, pedals and seats; tune the gears and even make new wheels. 

 

The final job was fitting locally made pannier racks, which turn a bike into a people carrier - it is a common sight on the roads here to see bikes being used to transport several people and the weekly shopping 

This week the students took the first nine bikes to CEG Ampangabe, a middle school 18km outside of Antananarivo. The school is located along a dirt road that many mountain bikers would enjoy riding, especially as apart from ox carts and bikes it is pretty much traffic free and full of potholes and opportunities to get airborne. 

 Many of the students at the school are spending several hours a day walking to and from school. The school will be allocating the bikes to the students who are living the furthest away to reduce the time they spend walking and hopefully giving them a helping hand in their education. Thank you 3R and WBR for the inspiration!

  

What does PE in the PYP look like?

 What does PE in the PYP look like? - This is a copy of article published in the school newsletter and later on the school website. It is designed to help parents understand further, what is happening in their child's PE class

A question that often gets asked in Parent Teacher Conferences is when are you teaching the basketball or the soccer unit in PE? This is a fairly understandable question, as most of us parents, when we were taught PE at school went through systems where the focus was on sport specific, often team game dominated, stand alone units. PE in the PYP however, has a slightly different focus.  As with other single subjects, PE is not a special add-on, but it is considered as an integrated part of the holistic programme being offered to the students. While in PE we are teaching about physical activities, we are also teaching through physical activities. To put this in context, we can look at some of the recent units of inquiry in PE at ASA.

KG and G1 students have just finished a PE unit where we integrated with the homeroom unit of inquiry. We used the homeroom central idea “Communities rely on people with different, special skills working together” and applied this to our PE class, with a focus on what working together actually looks like. Students participated in a whole range of fun physical activities that required cooperation in order to complete the tasks. Reflection is an integral part of the PYP and as we finished this unit students reflected on what they now understand by cooperation. Examples included “Working together to do things well”, “respecting everybody”, “Helping, caring and listening to others” and “To help each other using our different skill sets”.

If you watch a PYP PE lesson, you will often notice that different students are often engaged in different activities. Student agency is an important part of the PYP programme and takes many different forms. Students in PE are involved in decision making and the construction of learning goals. G5 students have recently completed a net games unit, where they were responsible for creating goals for their learning and defining what success would look like for them. Students were helped in this process, by using the same scaffolding that they used in the homeroom for goal setting. The role as the teacher is to then work alongside the students to help them facilitate their learning. For some, this involved them developing tennis skills, while others worked on volleyball or four square.

The development of students taking responsibility for the self direction of thier learning has also been an important component of G4 Striking and Fielding unit and the G3 Target Games unit. While traditional PE has often been taught as everyone practicing the same skill first, regardless of their ability level, and then playing a game at the end, for these classes we flipped this. In G4 we started with the game, before students inquired into areas that they felt they wanted to improve in to be an effective team player. While some spent time practicing their striking skills, others were working on developing their throwing and catching, before putting this back into the game.

Throughout the year PYP students will get to experience a balanced PE curriculum that will include learning experiences that include games, individual activities, movement composition, adventure challenge and activities that help develop their understanding of health related fitness, as we help students try to lead an active healthy lifestyle.

https://asamadagascar.org/story/physical-education-pyp/

Slow Start Swimming

This year my Grade 4 swimming classes are either directly after lunch break or after language classes, where students are coming from a variety of different classrooms. At the start of the school year, swim lessons started when everyone was out of the changing room and ready to go, but I noticed this was taking at least 10 minutes, and sometimes quite a bit longer. This was really reducing the teaching time of the lesson, especially as the lesson slot was 45 minutes, which included changing before and after swimming, instruction time and a free swim at the end. This resulted in reducing to a minimum or cutting out the free swim altogether, but I believe that students should be given a free slot each time to practice and play in the water.

The remedy - a slow start to the lesson, based on the slow starts I have have seen and read about in many Elementary classrooms. At the start of the lesson, as soon as the bell goes I open the pool gate and the students know they have 10 minutes of changing and free swim time before the lesson activities start.

Students use this 10 minutes in a variety of ways. Some dip their toes into the water, as they gradually enter the pool; others dive straight in and swim a few laps; some practice skills that we have covered; while most play with their friends - Marco Polo, tag, relays, jumping and diving in and this week, one student brought in waterproof uno cards to play!

From the student point of view this change in structure means that they have a guaranteed free choice time every week. This has resulted in many students arriving already changed ready to jump straight into the pool and everyone getting to the pool much earlier. And from my point of view, we have actually increased the instruction time of the lessons - so everyone wins!

Inquiry in PE

Since I have been teaching PYP PE one question that seems to come up between PE teachers is "How can you do Inquiry in PE?"
For some the answer seems to be you can't. In my experience this answer is followed with lots of passionately delivered reasons why that person does not want to do inquiry - reasons that I'm not sure I agree with.

Having decided to organise a PD evening for PE teachers in Phnom Penh, I decided I would bite the bullet and present my experience of delivering PE through an Inquiry Based approach.

A copy of this presentation, and a mini presentation which I also presented to at a school PD event on inquiry, which looked at knowing what happens in your classroom are included below.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18Rbf7hOamAxqnx0zQS6HmxT91qNxXUeRZeH9xHB5cVs/edit?usp=sharing 



https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CYTd_VeBuIcTb8t0TZJIUBXlfRVUwAToHEPq5cp_siM/edit?usp=sharing

Bikes in PE

For the past 7 years I have organised a school trip to Siem Reap, where students in Grade 4
and 5 are given the opportunity to participate in the Angkor Wat 3km Fun Run and the Angkor Wat Bike Race. While this trip has proven to be very popular, student numbers have doubled since the first trip I organised, at the back of my mind has been the thought that were we restricting the number of students who benefitted from going on the trip, by the fact that we only took students who had a bike and could ride. In August 2017 I bought three bikes for school and organised after school bike riding lessons for interested students. This proved to be a popular activity, and so we brought a few more bikes and then some more. We now have 25 bike for Elementary students to use.

While we do not have a dedicated cycling unit in the PE curriculum,

students have a range of opportunities to use the bikes. During our

Individual Pursuits athletics units, many students chose bike riding

as a way to develop their cardiovascular endurance, while some

students set themselves the goal of learning to ride a bike during

the lessons. Just over 25 students have learnt to cycle during the

Friday Fitness morning sessions.The bikes are available for students

everyday to use on the field and many have come out at morning

recess and lunch times to learn, often being taught by their friends.

The bikes were taken on the Grade 4 overnight trip, where students

enjoyed cycling on the dirt tracks and through the rice fields at

Ang Ta Som, while on the Grade 2 and 3 Camp Out on the school field,

students enjoyed cycling in their pyjamas!

When I surveyed the students in Grade 2 to Grade 5, I found that in some of the classes
almost two thirds of them could not ride a bike at the start of this school year (August 2018).
We are now at the stage (May 2019), that while not everyone has chosen to learn to ride,
89% of students in Grades 2 to Grade 5 can now ride.

As the students have become more proficient at cycling, I have designed a small bike
track at the back of the field with jumps, ramps, tabletops and berms. This has become
a popular activity and some students have taken the skills learnt here and used them in
Cambodian Mountain Bike Series races. Hopefully a few more students will be able to
join us on future Angkor Wat Trips as well.

Big numbers in PE

As part of the focus on big numbers in Book Week, students in G2 have been using pedometers to record the number of steps taken during PE class. KG have looked at different ways to measure how far they can throw objects.