Premier League Primary Stars | Emily's story

The Foundation’s schools department will upskill over 100 local teachers in their delivery of PE during the academic year, through our work with the Premier League Primary Stars programme, which aims to create a sustainable approach and leave a lasting legacy of high-quality PE across the local area.

BEFORE PRIMARY STARS

Before taking part in the Premier League Primary Stars teacher mentoring programme I had a lack of confidence in planning and delivering a variety of activities that linked to invasion games, as I only had previous experience delivering netball to my year group. I wanted to develop my ability to challenge my gifted and talented pupils, but I found this difficult as I mainly focused on ensuring my lower ability children could access the lesson.

FOUNDATION’S HELP

Before we even did any work with the class, I was able to discuss the elements of PE that I needed the most support with. This put me at ease and made me really feel that the programme was around me. I mainly identified that I struggled to challenge the gifted and talented children in my lessons and ensuring the differentiation of the lesson when teaching a variety of invasion games.

After the initial discussion, I worked alongside the Wolves Foundation coaches to plan and deliver sessions. I was given the opportunity to observe good practise and I identified a range of strategies that I knew I would be able to transfer into my own delivery and teaching practise. As the CPD developed, I team-taught with the coaches, delivering different parts of the sessions and working with different ability groups. Throughout the sessions, the coaches would discuss different aspects of the PE lesson with me for example identifying the gifted and talented children, differentiating activities to suit all participants and using the teacher mentoring booklet.

This meant I was able to identify how to implement the changes I had made to make it relevant to the building blocks of learning for the children. I was given the opportunity to teach invasion games that I had not been confident enough to teach before such as handball, tag rugby and bench ball. Throughout the programme, I was made to feel supported and challenged by the coaches to ensure I developed my teaching practise and my own ability in delivering PE sessions.

THE EFFECT

I feel more confident when delivering sessions to the children I teach. I am now able to differentiate my lessons whilst ensuring all children are active participants. I have used the skills I have learnt during CPD and now incorporate them into my PE lessons. I am now able to use a range of activities and games when delivering sessions and I have used these when teaching a variety of invasion games including netball, football and tag rugby.

As PE and sport lead, I have been able to use the activities I have learnt to develop the planning not only for my own class but to develop and adapt the planning across the whole school. The CPD has made me more confident and I am extremely pleased with the outcomes from my time spent with the Wolves Foundation coaches, delivering the Premier League Primary Stars Programme.

To get your school involved with the Foundation, contact Tom Warren at tomwarren@wolves.co.uk.