Minister for Education and Skills

Prior Knowledge: Students have participated in the strands of Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS), Basketball, Gymnastics, Athletics and Throwing and Catching games in first year. Students have tangible knowledge of orienteering and I will bare this in mind when setting the level of lesson difficulty.

Prior Skills:  Students have an appropriate level of understanding of FMS and can execute these movements with a degree of confidence. Learners do not have any prior orienteering skills.

 

The majority of learners enjoy participating in PE class and are open-minded to trying new things. However, three students are disruptive and consistently try not to participate. It is important to keep the lesson fun, task-orientated and provide opportunities for success for all students to build the student’s confidence.

Planning plays a vital part of effective teaching (Ward-Singer & Singer, 2004).  Something that I’ve found very interesting is the variety of factors that influence teacher’s planning and preparation. 

When planning the scheme of “Adventure Activity”, I planned out the lessons in a progressive sequence with each lesson building on the previous. I also took many factors such as student’s needs, abilities and interest into consideration. However, I had to reconsider my scheme and adjusted it slightly due to the weather. In Ireland, when we hear of lessons being changed over the weather we usually presume that the weather is bad. For instance, it’s raining so ‘Plan b’ is implemented indoors. However, this was not the case. On a few occasions I noticed how beautiful the weather was while driving to school, they truly were ‘September days’. The PE class planned was based entirely indoors. However, I decided, with the advice of a fellow PE teacher, that implementing an outdoor activity made more sense. As I could not guarantee this nice weather for next week’s lesson, I decide to re-arrange the lessons in the scheme and take advantage of the good weather. On reflection, this was one hundred percent the best option. It was a great, sunny day to foster student’s interest in orienteering and for student’s to build a love for the great outdoors. My decision was justified even further when the students arrived to class, immediately asking if they were going outside for orienteering. As I had adjusted the scheme, I was able to bargain with the students and explain that we had a few skills to learn and then we would head outside. At this moment, I realised how important being adaptable and pro-active is as a teacher. If I was to keep students indoors today they would have been extremely difficult to manage. In conclusion of the event, I agree with Ward-Singer & Singer, 2004, that planning is a vital part of effective teaching. However, I believe, after this class that planning along with teacher adaptability and flexibility results in the most effective teaching.

Literacy

Students will 
-broaden their vocabulary by learning key words and phrases associated with team challenges and adventure activities.

-communicate effectively with each other while discussing different solutions to challenges faced throughout the scheme. 

- learn the five key words associated with team challenges continuously throughout the scheme: Communication, Co-operation, Creativity, Teamwork, and Sharing Ideas. 
-provide feedback on sessions to the teacher in the form of exit cards. 

-read and aim to comprehend question during ‘Orienteering Trivia’ in hope to find the correct answer.

-compose a word using the letters they found at the control sites.

 

-Students will take part in orienteering activities that require the use of numbers.

-Students will develop problem solving practices to solve team challenges. . 

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