This term has been a challenging one for us as a PE department, but with a range of opportunities for when we come back to school. This time off has given me time to think about the future of my beloved teaching subject: Physical Education (PE) and Sport. As PE teachers we have an amazing opportunity and responsibility when we come back to school. We aim to create the new generation of superheroes, providing them with their toolkit of weapons (‘useful’ transferable skills) that can be utilised across a range of situations.

The ‘Hidden curriculum’ is something we refer to when asked about the non-physical benefits of Physical Education. Character values such as grit and resilience are often part and parcel of a good PE curriculum but are not documented or assessed in any way. A great example of this is during a strenuous 12 minute run test, can students show grit and determination to push through the increase in lactic acid to gain a new personal best score? This skill can be transferred to real life and other school situations e.g. finding a maths problem difficult to solve, refining scientific procedure to find the best method, redrafting work that isn’t quite as good as it could be, bouncing back from defeat, the list goes on.

This time away from school has given us as a department the chance to conduct research into other schools in other countries who have come out of lockdown to teach safe and sustainable PE. There have been some great examples for us to follow and allowed us to design our own programme to ensure the safety of the students can be met, whilst giving them a meaningful and different experience. As well as this the students have had their own chance for feedback from a questionnaire given to them on our instagram TAYLORS.LIGHTNING where they have offered ideas for what they would like to see on their curriculum moving forwards.

As for school sport, I have been actively engaging with other schools in what will be our brand new league association which is starting in September called Aims to gain insight into planning and preparation into fixtures for term 3. As we do not currently have an idea what the situation will look like by then, we are planning as best we can and hoping that some school sport will take place in the ‘new’ normal.

I wish everyone a safe and prosperous Hari Raya celebration with their loved ones and am extremely excited about what is coming up for us in term 2 & 3.


Mark Kelly (Director of Sport)
Email Contact: mark.kelly@pc.tis.edu.my