Have you ever struck gold?

Have you ever felt that you have struck gold during your week whilst teaching? Have you ever felt so powerful that everything you have thought about and planned has worked?

If so I know how your feel. The first two weeks of Term 2 has been extremely busy don't get me wrong! I set myself a huge challenge coming back to work from the highs of Seattle and even though I have a million things I want to implement I was careful not to overload my students and fellow PE teacher. Therefore I selected carefully the one program that could compliment what I do already but raise it to the next level. 

PLICKERS was the inclusion into the PE program to bring out the deeper thinking strategies within the students in my classes. The immediate results were fantastic. Not only did the students show me through plickers what they knew but this program changed the way I asked questions. I understood that students at times didn't understand the language I used in the question. I was able to draw this out of the students when I asked them about the answer they chose. 

With the inclusion of Plickers came the need for students to be given a playing number. I made a big deal about this like a jersey presentation night as I wanted them to really identify with the program we were going into. I wanted them to feel that this number then connected them to the team they were in.

The third element to my golden run was the introduction of POWER CIRCLES. Lets be honest guys, I hated having my students enter the gym only to stand in a roll line then sit for instructions. I wanted to combine all of this into an idea that brought immediate action. Power Circles is a concept that I devised whilst talking to REALSCHOOLS. It sees students enter the class and stand on their playing number in a circle. Player number 1 grabs the object out of the box behind them and starts a warm up activity that is simple. e.g. Bounce pass and catch. Whilst they do this they are currently using words that represent team work. (I will change the theme every few weeks to suit Physical Literacy needs and whole school programs). Whilst they are doing this I check for the numbers that are not stood on and this shows me who is away for the roll. After a few minutes they are then focused. I then stop the activity and introduce the first focus activity of the class with my learning intentions. The POWER CIRCLE concept is GOLD in itself. FOCUSED, ENERGISED and TEAMWORK are three words to describe it.


My exit strategy is very similar. I ask the students to grab their plicker card and go to their number in the circle. I stand in the middle and debrief about the lesson goals and then ask my plicker question. Once the answers are in I can then ask follow up questions to students to find deeper understandings as to why they have selected that answer.


10 days of pure GOLD at LEOPOLD PS.