PE to Me: a concise message about the potential for learning in Physical Education

Abstract

Towards being physically educated in PE, this paper imparts a pedagogical message to school hierarchies; LEAs, Senior Management Teams, Governors, Parents Associations, and indeed, mainstream PE teachers ‘at the chalk face’, about the potential of their subject for intellectual development. PE is not just a fun exercise or a break from learning at school, it is learning in school. PE is a creative and demanding opportunity to think in engaging ways and this poem may be evidence for it. The message within PE to Me is delivered in studentvoice, told here in a sonnet form of poetry. The verse cleverly uses repetition to make a 180-degree u-turn about the fortunes of what PE has to offer during the pupils’ week, or what might be anticipated in PE by these young people. That this kind of intellectual engagement from Primary (Year 6) pupils in PE became their expectation of PE teachers at Secondary school (Year 7-11) can, in our view, only be a good thing for the health and status of PE generally.