This video outlines the ways Tea Gardens Public School are implementing the Physical Literacy continuum and the benefits they have observed.

Debbie Booth – Classroom Teacher:

Tea Gardens Public School is situated about 70 k's north of Newcastle. We have about 180 students. A fairly transient population. At present in town we have very few sporting facilities available. So physical activity to the students at our school is a high priority for our teachers.

Question: How did you use the NSW Physical Literacy Continuum?

Debbie Booth – Classroom Teacher:

I spoke with the executive first and they agreed that we should trial the physical literacy continuum. I took it to the staff and did some professional learning based around what the Department had provided for us. I explained what the physical literacy continuum was about. How it could benefit staff and students at our school and how it would help us to inform us of where our students are. And what we could use from that physical literacy continuum to improve the outcomes for our students.

It helped us to look at how we can better tailor the programs we were already using. I think when we're programming for our students we're actually taking more time and care to think about skill development, building that knowledge within the students of how they play with each other, how they interact with each other. What knowledge they need to be able to play a game.

We've tied it into our Health and Personal Development syllabus as well. So we're looking at components of why do we need to do physical activity, how can that benefit you. We all got on board, we all chose an activity. We had a few conversations in between putting our data in to see if we were all on the right track, if we had some consistency in our judgement. Then we re-trialled the same game and we learnt lots of things from when we put data in from the first time to when we put data in for the game the second time.

We could actually start to see the pointers on the physical literacy continuum and what it actually looked like and what our students look like in that cluster.

Question: What are the benefits of using the NSW Physical Literacy Continuum?

Debbie Booth – Classroom Teacher:

The benefits for the children I think will be that it's made teachers more conscious of what we should be explicitly teaching our students. And I noticed even those students that didn't like participating at first, now get in and to watch them come out with a smile on their face, I think that's payment enough for any teacher to see. Taylor Simmons - student: In my classroom from the beginning of the year until now, there has been a great increase in teamwork. We've learnt a lot more tactics and skills to use in games. We play a lot more sport so we can put the new tactics and skill we learnt to the test.

Liz Winney – Classroom Teacher:

The confidence that my kids are getting and the confidence that I am getting in my abilities .I am also finding that it is really nice to have that very clear way to track the kids progress, whereas in the past it' sort of been a bit of guessing, like are they using that or are they not. And having those really sort of explicit Ok this is what we're looking for and are these students demonstrating this has meant that I've been able to identify the kids who can and can't do it and I guess more importantly, what do the kids who can't do it need to learn in order to progress to developing those skill.

Debbie Booth – Classroom Teacher:

The biggest thing I have noticed, um, is we've just finished writing our reports and just having conversations with other teachers about how, um, probably more accurate they can now report on students to their parents, what skills they do have, where do we need to take them on the physical literacy continuum next. How can we further assist those students who are still, don't quite have the social skills, aargh, to work on and what activities, where we are going to go to be able to bring those students into realising that physical activity is important. I think it will also help us with our positive behaviour for learning, and looking at where our students are on the wellbeing framework. I think they all neatly fit in with one another. So it's not, the physical literacy continuum is not just an add on, it’s a real support for what schools are already doing.

So I think schools need to be positive when introducing the physical literacy continuum as its to support you with what you're already doing within your school. At Tea Gardens Public School in 2016 staff have decided to continue using the Physical Literacy continuum. And I'm looking forward to seeing where we can go from here as a whole staff K to 6.

NSW Government Education Public Schools.

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