Building a Successful Concept Curriculum

A step-by-step process to better understand, consider and then construct a successful ‘Concept Curriculum’ that will work in your context and help transform Physical Education to better meet the needs of all your learners.

This course has been skilfully created by Lee Sullivan to draw on his experiences, insight and ongoing collaborations with other Leaders of PE.

Recommended (but not compulsory) background reading for this course is Lee’s book – ‘Is PE in Crisis? Leading A Much Needed Change in Physical Education‘.

You may also want to purchase the Primary PE Concept Curriculum or PE Concept Curriculum for KS3 & KS4 package for inspiration and to supercharge your planning, but this is not essential and you may prefer to create your own.

Course Overview

This course provides a great foundation to consider how to implement a Concept-driven Curriculum at your school. It will take you approximately 5-8 hours to complete.

The course provides insight, research, support, challenge and shared practice on the following aspects of Concept Curriculum design and implementation:

• Opportunity to reflect on your personal and PE department ‘why’ and curriculum intent.
• Hear expert guidance on implementing a concept curriculum in PE from the co-author of the PE Concept Curriculum and how it can prepare all students for life through PE.
• Develop your own concept curriculum scheme of work and lesson plans to meet the needs of all students.
• Listen to other physical educators currently implementing a concept curriculum and leading meaningful change in PE as they share their learning and practice.
• Understand inclusive pedagogy and adopt a physical literacy informed approach to provide positive and meaningful PE experiences for all students.
• Receive support to assess and evaluate the impact of changes made to delivery.

The course includes the following 5 engaging and informative lessons:

Lesson 1: Justifying the need for change in PE:

• Start with your ‘Why’.
• Support in justifying to your team, parents and senior leaders why change is needed in physical education.

Lesson 2: The Concept Curriculum:

• A Physical Literacy Informed Approach.
• Introducing the Concept Curriculum.
• Consider Teachable Moments and Assessment Opportunities within lessons.
• Create your own Concept Curriculum Scheme of Work.

Lesson 3: The Concept Curriculum Pedagogy:

• Delivering a Concept Curriculum Lesson.
• Practical advice with actual lesson examples.
• Application to physical activity/sports.
• Curriculum lesson – with planning support.

Lesson 4: Assessing the Concept Curriculum:

• Review of assessment related research and considering the purpose of assessing in PE.
• Assessment examples and opportunity to consider then plan your own holistic assessment.

Lesson 5: Embedding and Evaluating the Concept Curriculum:

• Leading effective meetings and collaborative planning.
• Creating consistency through shared resources.
• Assessing impact: Student voice and quality assurance.

The course brings ideas from research and practice to life through a rich variety of video clips, blog articles, low stakes quizzes and tasks. It is perfect for primary school PE subject leaders or secondary PE practitioners who want to ‘tweak to transform’ their offer through this course.

You can complete the 5 lessons in bite-sized chunks or all in one go with anytime anywhere access via our website.

You will be able to see the ideas and contributions of other participants via discussion threads along the way. You will also be invited to join the next live 60 minute Zoom meeting that will bring together others who have recently completed the online materials to collaborate, reflect on learning and ask questions of the course instructors. Our intention is to run one of these each term. We will share the next available date and time with you once booked on the course.

All participants will be invited to upload resources to capture their learning and thinking at the end of the course. In doing so, you will unlock access to a growing library of ideas to help progress and support your thinking further.

Each lesson is fully asynchronous, meaning you can log on whenever you want to complete the content. On completion you will be awarded a certificate for your professional development records.

Instructors

Delivered by award-winning physical education experts from across the UK.

Lee Sullivan

Lee has over 12 years PE teaching experience and is a current Head of PE. Preparing students for life through physical education is Lee’s ‘why’ and this value was the motivation for creating the concept-driven curriculum and writing the thought provoking book ‘Is PE in Crisis? Leading Meaningful Change in Physical Education’. Lee is an advocate of creating relevant and meaningful PE experiences for all students through concept-driven and personalised curriculum, holistic assessment and inclusive pedagogy. Lee presents to trainee teachers at universities and often leads training and 1to1 support for PE departments leading change. Creating a positive PE environment that better nurtures physical literacy and develops positive attitudes towards physical activity is at the heart of all that Lee does.

Will Swaithes

Will Swaithes is an experienced teacher, teacher educator and leader of teaching and learning. With over 20 years’ experience in education, he is currently a Senior Lecturer in Physical Education at Birmingham City University leading the secondary PGCE programme whilst also contributing to Initial Teacher Education at several other institutions including Loughborough and Buckingham universities. Will is Education Director at PE Scholar, a Specialist Leader of Education (SLE) for Redhill Academy, previous Head of Physical Education and Achievement for Youth Sport Trust (YST), previous Assistant Head for Teaching and Learning and author of an OCR GCSE PE textbook. He achieved Advanced Skills Teacher (AST) status in 2006 and also holds a Masters in Educational Leadership. Will has a reputation for high-quality consultancy services, mentoring support and training with an ambition to ensure PE stands for Positive Experiences for all children in all schools.