This was the first session in our microteaching groups and we were tasked with teaching the other students about the baton changeover in athletics. I already feel pretty comfortable speaking in front of my classmates and I think my confidence has certainly grown in this area since my first time in front of everyone. Prior to this lesson, I had gone back over the athletics profile folder I completed in first year and this helped me to prepare and remain confident in the content and instructions I delivered to the class. I think my voice projection comes across well, even in the surroundings of the large sports hall but I am very used to coaching and teaching classes in these spaces anyway. I think that the more times I deliver these lessons then the more confident I will become at them. I do feel though that when we go to the schools to teach these aspects that we may be faced with more realistic skill and attention obstacles. These are good ways of getting us used to the process for now though, at least.

This week was much more challenging for me and for the entire group. Irish dancing is not my forte (or background) so I was not at all confident of delivering my part of the lesson. Stark contrast to last week! I did practice my part of the lesson at home during the week a few times, I even practised teaching my daughters so that I wouldn’t feel totally inadequate but trying to learn the steps of ‘The Siege of Ennis’ in just a short few days has proven difficult – never mind learning it to a point whereby I need to be good enough to teach it to others! I did give a conscious effort to try to pretend that I knew what I was talking about to the rest of the class but I would really have preferred it if I had more knowledge of the routine in future so this is a potential area for improvement on my side. I will say though, that I learned the steps pretty well and I think the other students cooperated very well with me, possibly because they were even more uncomfortable than I was when they went to try the steps out.

This week, we shifted our focus to Orienteering. In contrast to last week, my skill and knowledge in this strand would be much better than that of Irish dancing. I created the learning wall and printed it out and after posting it on the wall, Joao pointed out that although it was very impressive it may be a bit advanced for a primary school group so I should perhaps simplify it for the following week. I think this made a lot of sense, too. For the lesson itself, we focused on movement literacy skills relative to orienteering, consisting of multi-directional warm up routines, using different language or keys for specific tasks and trying to put a context of the skills we were looking to teach and progress to the class going forward. Orienteering does require a lot of preparation to deliver a class effectively and I think that given the correct type and amount of suitable orienteering resources (symbol cards, maps, signage, etc.) that this could be delivered very well to all levels of students regardless of their interest in PE class in schools.

We did not have any teaching class today because Laura Bleakley and I were tasked with visiting our placement primary school class to meet with the teacher and our students who we will be teaching for the next three weeks at the Educate Together National School in the city centre. I compiled a set list of questions for the teacher and principal of the school and we both sat down with the teacher who was very open and kind in answering all of them. We met with our prospective third class students and they seemed pretty excited to meet us. We observed the PE areas and were able to garner a sense of what we could work with and the spaces available to us as well as the various items of equipment available and also the possible limitations to what we needed to do. It was a very worthwhile visit and I must say that I felt much more at ease when I left the school knowing what to expect for next week’s placement teaching class.

Today was the first on-site school teaching placement class for our group. The topic we are teaching for the next three weeks will be orienteering and I really feel that we had a sound grasp on this subject going into the school environment although I wasn’t too sure how the younger students would react to the exercises we had set out for them. Personally, I felt very confident teaching the class, my voice was loud and clear and I think/hope that the students got a sense of my own personal enjoyment at teaching them all, which helped to keep my part of the lesson on-track. I decided to take the first part of the lesson which was the learning wall and warm up. I think this helped to break the ice for the other teachers and subsequently for the students and once I started with the exercises and routines then everyone tried to do what I was asking them to do. One theory of learning that has constantly been in my thought-process is Lev Vygotsky’s “Zone of Proximal Development” and his theory of “Scaffolding” to enhance the learning process. I think for students at this age, in particular, these theories are extremely evident and effective. The class are great fun. Some are really quiet, some very obedient and some just like messing about so there are different challenges incorporated into the group as a whole.

This was the second week of school placement and I was really looking forward to seeing the class again. I took the first part of the main body of the lesson and this week we decided to help each other out in the group because we felt that some students were a little inattentive last week and that more hands on deck, so to say, would help alleviate the issue of rowdy kids during each teacher’s set-piece. This was working very well but Joao quickly pointed out that this group-teaching strategy wasn’t going to help us as individual teachers to learn and cope with the real-life scenarios of teaching a class on our own. Again, he was quite right indeed! Thankfully, I was able to take the full group on my own and I was happy to then sit back and observe how the other teachers developed the lesson with the students in their own ways. I think my learning wall developed again this week and we were able to revisit it during the lesson too. The time allocated to us as a teaching group though perhaps isn’t viable for an effective PE lesson and I would hope that we would be given more time to develop our PE class in the secondary schools when we go on placement in January.

Unfortunately, this was our final lesson in the school today! Again, we managed to progress the orienteering lesson and build it up to more complicated but engaging activities for the group. The class teacher, Sinéad, even commented on how surprised she was that the class were able to learn so fast when she thought they may never have been able to do those tasks before. I was very happy to hear that. I felt even more confident again this week and I do think that proper preparation is essential to delivering an engaging and effective lesson to any class. I like the way we developed each week’s lesson to help the students to learn progressively and in a fun environment. Looking at the other teachers in my group, I think they have also grown a lot themselves too. I had one final chance to speak with my designated student, Jed O’Mahony, before we left the school. Jed said he really enjoyed the PE classes over the last few weeks and that he wishes we could come and do their PE class every week. I was delighted to hear that feedback from one of the children we had worked with. 

Physical Education offers students alternative methods to develop their key literacy and numeracy skills while also developing their key motor skills and overall health and well-being. Introducing these skills from an early age and helping to develop their learning experiences through physical education is vital for long-term health and education. Orienteering offers students the chance to develop their literacy skills by participating in tasks such as map reading, reading symbols, sign reading, matching words to pictures or symbols, developing descriptive terms through language, and learning how to seek answers through questioning.  Student’s numeracy skills are challenged within an orienteering lesson by participating in tasks which develop their sense of scale, spatial awareness, distance parameters, sourcing locations, problem solving, learning about direction, map reading again, gathering and deciphering data, and again using symbols in relation to their tasks. The policy informing practice for primary school curriculum helps every teacher to access as many vital resources as possible to offer every student under their care the best opportunities to learn and harness their talents, their physical health and their cognitive domains.

On visiting our primary schools in November, we were each assigned a student from the class we were teaching with the aim of developing a trusting and insightful relationship to ascertain how that student felt towards the subject of Physical Education in school, what their own experiences were of physical activity in their own lives and to acquire some feedback on our delivery of the lessons we delivered in their school setting.

Initially, I visited the Educate Together National School in Cork city with another class-mate, Laura Bleakley, to enable our group to prepare for the upcoming teaching placement with our designated class by meeting the class teacher and some of the students of the class and asking some important questions around issues such as culture, gender mix, students with learning difficulties, etc. 

On our first day of teaching placement with the group, I met a young boy called, ‘Jed’. Jed is an eight-year-old, third-class pupil in the school. I began by introducing myself informally and sat down with him for approximately twenty minutes to chat. We spoke about his family, friends, school work, interests and most importantly, about what role sport and physical activity plays in his everyday life.

As it turned out, Jed lives only a few miles away from where I do in Glanmire. In fact, he lives right next door to some friends of mine and even plays with their son and daughter most days! His mum works in an office and his dad is a taxi driver. Jed was very friendly and quite talkative, and he is an only child. We quickly found some common ground when Jed told me that he was adopted as a baby and I retorted by telling him that I was adopted as a baby too! He told me that when he grows up that would love to work at the LEGO factory in England, making large pieces of LEGO every day. He told me how he has collected all of the LEGO Star Wars models and often spends weeks constructing these pieces at home. I know that for Christmas, Jed is looking for the Star Wars spaceship LEGO model from Santa Claus. Jed practices Shotokan Karate in Glanmire every Thursday evening for an hour and a half and he is currently a 2nd Dan Brown belt in this discipline, which is quite impressive for an eight-year-old! Jed told me about his house and how he enjoyed playing with his friends when the weather was nice outside but complained that he is rarely allowed outside lately because it’s getting cold and it rains a lot, so instead, he spends quite a lot of time inside his house either playing video games, building LEGO or watching YouTube videos. On hearing this, I became intrigued and started to enquire some more about these activities. This is where I became slightly alarmed at this eight-year-old’s apparent lack of physical activity.

Jed explained that because his mum works in an office near the city centre and she does not take the car to work, that his dad would usually collect him from school every day, drive him home to Glanmire where he would have his dinner and do some homework, then they would leave the house again to drive back in to the city to collect his mum from work before driving back home again. When they return home, he would usually sit down and watch television programs on his favourite YouTube channels – sometimes for two to three hours, especially if it is too cold or wet outside. He said that he often got bored inside the car with his dad and usually had to complete his homework in the car while travelling to collect his mum from work. The only day he spends less time in the car is on a Thursday evening when his dad drops him to karate practice while he drives to collect Jed’s mum. I calculated that on average, this healthy-looking young child might spend approximately two hours sitting in a car every weekday, that is at least ten hours of inactivity per week, before we even consider his fascination with YouTube, video games or LEGO-building. While it has to be said that LEGO is an enjoyable activity for one’s mind and for one’s creative expression, it also involves minimal physical exertion in order to enjoy it. Clearly, this level of weekly inactivity may have very negative consequences on the overall health and wellbeing of this child and I would like to hope that as he grows older that he will be encouraged to participate in a more active lifestyle, however that may be implemented.

Following on from our class teaching lesson, I asked Jed how he felt about the games and sport that we had been teaching his class. He was quite impressed because he had never experienced Orienteering in any context before. He said he would like to try out an orienteering activity outside school some weekend and I gave him some info and suggestions about where he may be able to try this out. He highlighted the fact that some of his class-mates were a little “rowdy” but that they were usually like that in other classes anyway and how he gets annoyed when sometimes they disrupt a lesson. Jed also said that in school, P.E. class usually doesn’t take place at all but he and his class-mates would love it if they had more P.E. classes in the week because it can get pretty boring just stuck in a classroom all day, every day. This also gave me cause for concern in relation to the level in inactivity facilitated to these developing children in their school environment. I continued by asking him if he ever played any other sports either in school or at home and he said that he didn’t really like playing GAA or soccer although he did enjoy watching his favourite team, Manchester United, on the television. He played a small bit of basketball or maybe some games of ‘chase’ during school break-time but had never played sport in a team setting outside of school. 

Following on from our brief conversations, I must admit that I was both surprised by the level of physical inactivity in this child’s everyday life, but also cognisant of the daily struggles and mundane routines that affect many families in their hectic lives and how this is having such a negative impact on the long-term outlook for young people’s health and wellbeing. Physical Education needs to be taught correctly and sufficiently in primary school because cases like Jed’s are all too common and so many children today are unfortunately caught up in the stresses of our “rush” society, and the school may possibly be the only facilitator of physical activity in many young lives going forward. Unless we can teach basic movement skills and ideals to our youngest members of society, then what kind of level will we, as post-primary teachers, be faced with when they come through that system and into ours? Systematic changes need to be implemented nationally to ensure our population are given the best possible opportunities to become physically active and mentally healthy from as early an age as is possible. Otherwise, we could be facing one of the biggest health epidemics of modern times in this country.

Classroom management is a vital element of how the learning environment is dictated. The classroom is never a place where all students are very similar. Differences exist within every classroom from age, gender, culture, social and economic factors to religion, nationality, behavioural and family factors. All of these things can serve to create a concoction of challenges for any teacher so therefore, it is essential that the learning environment is controlled and managed in such a way as to cater for all of these potential factors in various circumstances. 

On my initial school placement visit to the Educate Together National School, I had a list of 20+ questions for the teacher and for the students to help me and my group to develop and real sense of what challenges may lay ahead of us when we began our practice lessons. On review of these questions, we found that there were many differences within the class group but what I also discovered, or realised, is that there were very real and glaring similarities too. All of the students were there to learn. They were all similar in age and were under the common care of one teacher, of whom they all respected and looked up to. If the teacher can develop a sense of trust and respect with the class then a lot of the potential challenges can immediately be softened. 

Below are some strategies we used to manage and assist in the learning environment during placement.

I would begin my lesson with a brief introduction and a quick run-through of some ground rules.  Rule-setting is extremely effective and what I have found is that young people would prefer to know exactly what the rules are instead of finding out indirectly what they are – usually after a rule has been broken! The first simple rule that we, as a group decided to use was that all students would have to remain attentive and listen to the teacher in-charge. The class teacher, Sinéad, used a hand signal whereby she would put one finger on top of her lips and the other hand pointing up in the air. As soon as one pupil saw that, then they would pass the message onto the others and calmness was quickly restored – simple but very effective.

I was able to use my voice and my tone of voice as a means to get and hold everyone’s attention. I tried to make sure that I could be heard loudly and clearly at all times, even over the loud noise that usually accompanies a third class in primary school. Again, this is a simple and effective means of managing the classroom and helping the lesson to develop.

The class was very aware of the 3 C’s: Compliance, Cooperation & Community.

The students would comply with the teacher’s instructions and the behaviour of the other students would help to implement that too. The students cooperate with the teacher and are often given choices themselves to help develop the lesson. The sense of community within the classroom environment is further enhanced by the community within the teaching group in the school. These 3 C’s are important factors in assisting the management of the learning environment.

Feedback was constantly and consciously used by all of us to the students. Positive feedback and constructive feedback keeps the students interested and gives them a greater sense of encouragement for trying a task. Feedback around their good behaviour and even feedback turned into a positive light when their behaviour may have been negative quickly dampens potential bad behaviour from spiralling out of control. Positively reinforcing a student’s confidence will usually help them to try as hard or even harder again the next time they try to do something.

As a group, we tried our best to keep the flow of the lesson moving as seamlessly as possible. While one teacher was delivering a lesson, the others would perhaps to preparing the area for the next stage of the lesson. This helped to ensure that there were no breaks between the teacher change-over from task to task and therefore, that all the students were kept engaged through the lesson. This use of effective transitioning should be planned in advance of any lesson, especially where a teacher is going to be on their own for the entire lesson.

1)      Policy Informing Practice

2)      Management of the Learning Environment

3)      Pedagogical Tools

4)      Case Study

5)      Reflections