1. What sports did you practise when you were at school? Do you know these sports:
volleyball, cross-country running, cricket, rugby?
2. Do you have fond memories or bad memories of those sports?
3. Did you participate in any other sport outside of school?
4. Are there any sports that you practise now but used to hate doing when you were younger? Did school or PE teachers colour your attitude towards physical activity?
5. Is there a stereotypical PE teacher? Is it a positive or negative stereotype? Did they favour particular pupils?
Read article here: School Sports Reading
6. What is your reaction? Do you recognise your own experience in any of the stories mentioned in the article? Was your choice of sport/your enthusiasm ever affected by a random comment from a PE teacher?
7. In the article, the director of Youth Sport Trust said that sport should not focus on competition. In the UK, competitive sport at school is now frowned upon - it's now more important to be inclusive and to favour participation rather than winning. What's the situation in your country - are children encouraged to be competitive?
8. Most adult sporting activity is done for health/fitness/social purposes - do you think that school sport should reflect this e.g. aerobics instead of athletics, gym work instead of team sports?
9. If you were the headmaster/headmistress of a school, how much of the timetable would you give to sporting activity, and what activities would you favour?
10. If you were looking to start doing sport, would you choose a team sport or an individual one? Why?
11. If you were looking for a coach/personal trainer/fitness guru, what type would you choose: a 'drill sergeant' type, or someone more easygoing? If you go to a gym/class, what sort of atmosphere is there? Is it competitive, or something more collegial?
12. "Schools hire coaches whose objective is to win rather than to instil a love of sport." Do you agree?
13. Does your company have interdepartmental sports leagues/teams? Which disciplines are represented? How seriously are they taken?
..........
Situation
You are the headmaster/headmistress of a secondary school who wants to modernise the school's sporting curriculum. You're interviewing for a new PE teacher to help you do this. Decide on whether you want the school to be competitive in its sports, or more inclusive in its approach to physical activity.
Interview the candidate (your teacher), outlining what you expect from the new recruit.
..........
Discuss quotes
"If it doesn't matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?"
- Vince Lombardi
"One man practising sportsmanship is far better than a hundred teaching it."
- Knute Rockne
"Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence.
In other words, it is war minus the shooting."
- George Orwell
"Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Student Handout PDF: School Sports
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