As Education Alberta prepares to finalize the new curriculum for secondary education, Ponoka Secondary Campus (PSC), after introducing project based learning in several courses, has taken another step to start the transformation to outcome based learning in physical education (PE).
PE teachers at PSC Jody McElroy and Cody Baird made a presentation at the school council meeting Wednesday evening, Feb. 25 to explain the new approach, which is aimed at instilling physical activity as a lifelong practice among all students rather than focusing on certain sports and individuals.
During the presentation, participants were told that the new approach recognizes that all students have varying interests in sports and physical activity, and as such the physical education classes should be encompassing the need to allow all students to be introduced to different sports in a way that they can select and focus on what sports they would like develop skills in.
“Our goal is not to raise athletes in school,” stressed Baird during the presentation. He said their objective was to ensure each student has the opportunity to know about and practice any sport they may want to excel in.
The implementation of the approach has been designed in a way to give students the chance to try a variety of sports and types of physical activities in repetitive turns but with intervals.
Accordingly, sports with similar characteristics have been grouped under names like “bouncing balls” to include basketball, soccer, handball or “airborne activities” to include football, volleyball and ultimate Frisbee and these groups will be the focus of gym classes in turns, with students being exposed to all available choices of physical activity.
During the school council meeting, participants were also briefed about efforts to find coaches for PSC teams from among community members and difficulties surrounding the process.