When you drop your child off at school and hear that we’re practising running, jumping, and throwing in Physical Education (PE), it might sound like basic playground play. However, in Tautoru we are focusing on these fundamental movements because they are the building blocks for skill development and confidence for all things PE. These skills all help in most sports and physical activities.
This week, we launched into our PE and Health programme starting with a Run, Jump, Throw focus. This is in the name of skill building but also in preparation for our junior fun athletics. Today, we started off with exploring different ways to run. We ran some relay races and played some games involving lots of running.
Before we started our PE lesson we set the scene by setting goals with Shannon, thinking about the character strengths that will help us work better as a team. We thought about how we would give new skills and games a go and how we could be confident but safe risk takers. For some of our kids taking a risk is being brave enough to race someone.
We think of fundamental movement skills as the "phonics" for physical activity. Before children can read or write sentences, they need to master most of their letters and sounds. In a PE context, our children can learn to play sports like futsal, basketball, netball, athletics or even swimming because they learn the three foundational building blocks to be successful:
Running : teaches spatial awareness, speed and pacing yourself, balance, and agility. Learning how to run efficiently and well sets our children up as healthy sports people who continue to develop their fitness and skills throughout their time at school whether it is participating in class PE, playground games or venturing out and playing in a sports team.
Jumping: requires stability and Power. Jumping in different ways develops muscle strength and we make sure we teach safe landing. Safe landing skills include teaching about soft knees and balanced feet. These skills and techniques are essential for protecting our growing joints and preventing injury. Jumping in sand at the beach is also a different type of landing but fun !
Throwing: builds hand-eye coordination and upper-body strength. Learning correct ways to throw objects lays the groundwork for every sport involving a ball or object.
- No competitive pressure for children under 9 years there are no official score lists, league tables or trophies.
- Delayed Rankings- Regional competitions start at age 11 but match scores and official rankings are off limits.
- Late Specialisation-Anything looking like a national championship or ' elite tracking' is 13 Yrs +.
This is what we really want our children to experience - 'a full menu'. We want to make sure that we are exposing our children to as many sporting opportunities as possible and helping them be successful by starting with the teaching of fundamental skills.
No physical activity is lost. Playing, visiting the park, kicking a ball around, scootering, family bike rides swimming lessons, water play and team sports. These are all great ways to notice and encourage your child's fundamental sports skills.
