November - A little update...
It’s been a crazy couple of months at TLG-PE and I thought I’d take the opportunity to give a little update on some of things the team and I have been getting up to.
As you’ll know, at the end of October, the DfE issued its new guidelines about the PE & school sport premium. The guidance highlighted the 5 key indicators that schools should expect to see improvement in, along with other clarification on spending and reporting requirements.
Swimming seemed to generate a lot of questions after the release, and we have been busy working with schools to ensure their data collection is fit for purpose with regards to what needs to be shown on their website by April next year. Remember, what you are expected to show is only what is stipulated in the National Curriculum program of study – There is nothing new that you should be teaching/focusing on. The only difference now is you have to publish the data!
Alongside swimming, 30 minutes of physical activity in schools is causing some subject leaders and heads to get in a bit of a panic about where they find 30 minutes each day to give to this. We’ve been working with lots of schools to find bespoke solutions that fit their specific situations – although I think my visit yesterday has to be my favorite!
I had the pleasure of visiting an inner city primary school in Nottingham yesterday who are using Steps 2 Summit to tackle their requirement for 30 minutes of documented physical activity each day. Like many schools, they are using lunchtimes to get pupils active and walking their daily 1 – 5k. But want to know what the best bit was? There wasn’t an adult in site policing it!
The activity was ran by six fantastic Y6 pupils who were busy handing out and marking activity cards of the children taking part. It was particularly Baltic yesterday and some of them look perished. It was there enthusiasm for the project, or maybe a little Christmas spirit on my part, that made me promise to get them all a Steps 2 Summit Young Leader hoody made that they can wear at lunchtimes. They’ve been ordered this morning and will be delivered by Christmas!
It really was awesome to see children from reception to Y6 walking together. I even joined in and did 1k myself!
Two girls in Year 3 were telling me about their art project they were completing on Kilimanjaro and how one day they would like to climb it for real. Days like that, you go home a little bit smugger, knowing that you’re getting something right.
As well as that, we are busy working on lots of updates to the TLG-PE system, including a whole new clubs and competitions section that will eventually link to schools websites – showing all the information that you need to report bang up to date at any point that it is viewed. Pretty clever hey?! Just another way we’re taking some of the pressure off subject leaders.
The Dance team is busy adding voiced instructions to all the dance units in the TLG-PE system (There’s currently 30 different dance themes – so it’s taking a while!) and also adding Cheerleading units as well.
The Gymnastics team is busy adding a new KS1 unit ready to be launched in January.
Team Scotland have been putting the finishing touches to the P4 Curriculum lessons and getting the system fully tested ready to launch in Scotland in January 2018.
The office staff have all been promised a Christmas meal out on Thursday 21st December, as long as their ‘to-do lists’ are cleared. The activity levels are really high trying to make sure we can finish the year with a clean slate and have all the updates on the system ready for you guys to return to school in January. I envisage some sore heads on Friday 22nd!
As ever, we’re here to help with anything PE & School sport related that you feel you need any advice, answers or information on. There’s no cost or commitment from asking for our help, so please, if you think you need some assistance – just ask.
You can contact me directly on colin@tlg-pe.co.uk
If you’d like more information on the Steps 2 Summit system and see it in action during a lunchtime, you can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT4s7QO02B4
We’ll be in touch soon with more updates of our adventures!