Senior Lecturer in Primary Physical Education Angela (Ange) Whitehouse, (and two other PE professionals - Sarah Lay and Helen Tonks) have created PE at Home, a resource aiming to give differentiated and age-appropriate guidance to all on doing PE at home. Ange told us more about it, and why she is so keen to share her passion around PE.
We are all experienced teachers who have worked across primary and secondary schools in Birmingham before going on to other roles. We are passionate about delivering high-quality PE opportunities even in these difficult and challenging times.
PE at Home has been created for families, children and young people in the home environment. It can also be used with small groups at school, for those teachers supporting children of key workers. It was developed as a response to the overwhelming ‘menu’ of physical activity and fitness opportunities on offer which, while they are a valuable and fun way to engage families and children in being active, are not PE. We believe that children and young people should have the opportunity to develop skills in a physical context, while also finding ways to ensure that their creative, cognitive and social learning develops alongside that.
Activities for children of all ages
Each set of resource cards contains activities for Early Years Foundation Stage, and Key Stage 1 (5-7 year olds) through to Key Stage 4 (14-16 year olds – the GCSE years), and covers all areas of National Curriculum PE. We have also built in cross-curricular learning as we wanted children and families to engage with the resource in a much wider context.
Each week, we develop a new set of resources and publish them via our Twitter page every Friday. They are offered free of charge to all families and schools who want to use them. A different theme is chosen for each week, and so far this has included Basketball, Athletics, Outdoor and Adventurous Activities, Tennis, Gymnastics, Cricket, and Dance and Sitting Volleyball. We have also created a half term activities card that covers all age groups.
Resource travels worldwide
The engagement from schools and families has been simply overwhelming. The resource cards have travelled right across the UK, and are now being used in 30 countries worldwide. They have even reached the distant shores of Australia, the USA, Bermuda, UAE, India, Hong Kong, Nigeria, and the Philippines, just to name a few!
We have had thousands of engagements on Twitter, and the feedback has been beyond what we could have hoped for, with schools, teachers and organisations praising the content. We hope that families and schools will continue to find the resource cards useful, and we can continue ensuring that children and young people have the opportunity to experience some great PE at Home.
Feeling inspired to teach?
If you'd like to get involved with teaching, we have a range of Primary and Secondary teacher training courses to choose from, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.
