Tom Hooper has introduced parkour to our curriculum and extra curricular programme over the last 12 months (click here to see previous post on parkour).
It is currently being delivered in yr 7, 8, 9 and 11 in core PE. Tom’s lunch time club had 36 boys turn up to it last Thursday, which is over 10% of the population of the school. We find that maintaining interest in an extra curricular club is a real challenge at Culverhay, but the numbers for parkour is still growing…after 12 months!
Tom is taking advantage of our next challenge day, themed ‘creativity’, by taking 20 pupils to parkour generations (www.parkourgeneration.com) in Westminster, London. They lead sessions in a custom built parkour park. I have challenged Tom to create a video of the day. Watch this space.
The activity of parkour has replaced the more traditional ‘gymnastics’ on the curriculum. I would debate with any PE practitioner (past or present) that I could accelerate pupil learning more in my parkour lessons than they could in their traditional gymnastics lessons. It offers so many ways for pupils to develop and allows the lead staff flexibility in their learning focus.
Using Create Developments cogs of learning (as we always do in lessons now), pupils can develop in all 6 cogs:
Physical
Social
Personal
Creative
Health and Fitness
Cognitive
…and this is an example of how.
Last week, I set up the old gym to look similar to this, with 5 stations set up (on the day, I had an extra station of a ‘long horse’ where pupils had to get over the horse from a standing start).
The format of the lesson was simple. The class was split into 5 groups, with a parkour leader taking the lead in each group (where possible, these leaders were regulars of the parkour club). Each group spent a set amount of time at a designated station, with a general focus / boundaries for each station. One of these stations was a FUNS focused station, using the ‘Raising the bar’ resource from Create Development.
Instead of being directed how to perform specific skills in a particular way (like so many of my gymnastics lessons in the past), pupils had the opportunity to be creative and take responsibility for their own learning by choosing their own level of challenge (with reference to comfort-stretch-panic). Something that pupils didn’t do in my ‘traditional’ gymnastics lessons that were much more teacher led.
The lesson was repeated with the year 7′s, 8′s and 9′s in succession, by 3 separate teachers (myself, Tom and Greig Seavill). Interestingly, each of us chose a different learning focus for the lesson, which we thought was best suited to our groups.
They were:
Year 7 -
Personal 4 - I can persevere with a task to improve my performance through practice
Health and Fitness 3 - I can take into account mine and my groups safety when using equipment
Physical 3 - I can perform a range of skills with good control and consistency
Year 8 -
Physical 6 - I can perform a range of skills consistently and accurately in challenging situations
Creative 8 - I can demonstrate flair and imagination
Health and fitness 6 - I am aware of possible dangers when planning an activity.
Year 9 -
Personal 6 - I take responsibility for my own learning; I can create my own learning plan and revise that plan appropriately.
Social 5 - I can give and receive sensitive feedback to improve myself and others performance
Physical 5 - I can perform a range of skills fluently and accurately in practice situations.
Having 3 learning foci, I nominated 3 pupils to remember 1 objective each, and asked them to repeat it on each mini plenary before allowing pupils to review with a partner what they are doing to achieve them and what they can do to accelerate their learning. The mini plenaries between each rotation, really focused the pupils on their learning, instead of just ‘doing’ the activity at each station.
The lessons were a great success and every pupil, in every class fully engaged. We have tipping point!
This is a guest post by Simon Scarborough, Head of PE at Culverhay School, Bath. His blog posts can be found on his website www.excellencethroughpe.co.uk. The original version of this post can be found at www.excellencethroughpe.co.uk/2012/01/funs-for-parkour.html