A guide to
Cambridge Lower Secondary
Physical Education
Introduction
Physical education is a vital part of a balanced school curriculum. Regular exercise improves both physical and mental health and there is growing evidence that it also improves academic performance across the curriculum. Establishing good exercise patterns in lower secondary schools also provides learners with the foundation of an active and healthy lifestyle.
Cambridge Lower Secondary Physical Education learners:
- develop their movement competence and confidence, linking movement skills together with increasing control, fluency and variety
- progress their knowledge and understanding of movement through the learning of movement concepts, rules, tactics/strategies and compositional ideas
- enhance their creativity and innovation in addressing movement challenges by varying elements to help build and extend their movement vocabulary
- participate and perform as individuals and group members in respectful and responsible ways, engaging
- appropriately and safely in team/group work and fulfilling associated expectations and roles
- develop their knowledge and understanding of how physical education can contribute to a healthy and active lifestyle
- develop transferable skills promoting physical, cognitive and social development, becoming independent, critical and reflective movers and thinkers.
Teaching Cambridge Lower Secondary Physical Education
We provide a wide range of practical resources, detailed guidance, innovative training and professional development so that you can give your learners the best possible experience of Cambridge Lower Secondary Physical Education.
We believe that for teaching and learning to be effective, there should be alignment between curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. We have designed Cambridge Lower Secondary Physical Education around this principle:
Curriculum – taken from Lower Secondary Physical Education Curriculum Framework
789MW.01 Select and apply a range of increasingly complex movement skills and techniques.
Pedagogy – 789MW.01 activity taken from the Stage 8 Scheme of Work
Explain that in this topic learners will be experiencing different types of throws. These will include heaving and pushing, using a range of throwing objects.
Pairs of learners stand opposite each other and practise throwing a large ball to each other. Ask them to explore some of the following throwing stances for a push throw:
Legs in a seated straddle position. Two-handed throw from the chest.
Kneeling in straddle position with hips high. Two-handed throw from the chest.
Standing straddle position. Two-handed throw from the chest.
Standing position with one foot forwards. Two-handed throw from chest.
In line position (chest turned to right if right-handed, lunge on right leg half turning away from throwing direction). Holding the ball at chest, thrower turns chest and hips to the front before throwing two-handed.
- Which is the best position to throw the ball from and why?
- Which body parts do the most work in a two-handed throw?
Discuss safety with learners and how heaving throws are unpredictable and can go anywhere in the movement space. Model safe practice and ask learners safety questions. Emphasise that learners need to remain alert and well-spaced.
Assessment
This subject should be assessed in the classroom through discussion, observation and lesson outputs where teachers discuss with students ‘what went well’ and how they can improve further, so they can reflect on, and improve, their performance.
Curriculum Framework
The Cambridge Lower Secondary Physical Education Curriculum Framework is available to download on the Physical Education (0081) page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site. It provides a comprehensive set of learning objectives that give a structure for teaching and learning and can be used to assess learners’ attainment and skills development.
We have divided the learning objectives into six main areas called ‘strands’ which run through every stage. Although the strands are separate, they are closely linked, providing a holistic approach to learners’ physical, cognitive and social development.
The learning objectives in the six strands of the Curriculum Framework support a multi-stage approach to teaching and learning. They span three stages to accommodate the physical, cognitive and social differences between learners in lower secondary. For this reason, the same learning objectives are used to structure learning through Stages 7 to 9.
The Curriculum Framework gives you a list of learning objectives across three stages (Stages 7 to 9). Our support materials then give you guidance on:
- the order in which to teach the objectives
- ways of grouping them
- how to split the objectives into smaller steps, and how to differentiate to make the work easier or harder
- suitable activities through which to teach
- ideas for active learning.
Our support materials include:
- Schemes of Work
- Teacher Guide
- Training
Find and access these support materials, on the Physical Education (0081) page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site. You can find more general information about these support materials on the About Cambridge Lower Secondary page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site.
Curriculum Framework
The Cambridge Lower Secondary Physical Education Curriculum Framework is available to download on the Physical Education (0081) page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site. It provides a comprehensive set of learning objectives that give a structure for teaching and learning and can be used to assess learners’ attainment and skills development.
We have divided the learning objectives into six main areas called ‘strands’ which run through every stage. Although the strands are separate, they are closely linked, providing a holistic approach to learners’ physical, cognitive and social development.
The learning objectives in the six strands of the Curriculum Framework support a multi-stage approach to teaching and learning. They span three stages to accommodate the physical, cognitive and social differences between learners in lower secondary. For this reason, the same learning objectives are used to structure learning through Stages 7 to 9.
The Curriculum Framework gives you a list of learning objectives across three stages (Stages 7 to 9). Our support materials then give you guidance on:
- the order in which to teach the objectives
- ways of grouping them
- how to split the objectives into smaller steps, and how to differentiate to make the work easier or harder
- suitable activities through which to teach
- ideas for active learning.
Our support materials include:
- Schemes of Work
- Teacher Guide
- Training
Find and access these support materials, on the Physical Education (0081) page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site. You can find more general information about these support materials on the About Cambridge Lower Secondary page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site.
Pedagogy
Cambridge Lower Secondary Physical Education should be taught through a broad range of movement tasks, challenges and physical activities. This includes activities in expressive/artistic, health-based, athletic and adventurous contexts appropriate for each stage. This variety supports learners’ physical growth and development of movement skills throughout the lower secondary stages, where new patterns of movement are continually replacing old ones. Through age-appropriate, inclusive and increasingly complex physical activities, learners will become increasingly proficient and independent in their movements.
Developing movement skills, such as balancing, running, jumping, catching, throwing, hopping, galloping, skipping, leaping and kicking, form the basis of more advanced movements. Not all learners develop their basic movement skills to a proficient level by the end of their primary school years. Therefore, it is also important to focus on these in lower secondary. Through movement, learners will also develop their coordination, flexibility, speed, stamina and strength.
All six strands in the Curriculum Framework develop knowledge, understanding, skills, values and attitudes that enable learners to become competent, confident and creative movers. They encourage learners’ enjoyment of a variety of physical activities throughout their lives.
During their lessons, learners should reflect on different types of physical activity and their health effects (social, emotional and physical). drawing from their own, their families’ or peers’ experiences of being physically active. You can help them to create plans, individually or in small groups, of how physical activity might be implemented into their current and future lifestyles. During each learning activity, you can make cross-curricular links to science, for example, how health can be affected by lifestyle, measuring heart rates.
Find information from the Scheme of Work
Find information from the Scheme of Work
Look in the Scheme of Work for the stage you will be teaching. Find activities that show an approach to teaching the following learning objectives:
789HB.01 Explain the effects of different types of physical activity on health and plan how physical activity can be implemented to promote a healthy, active lifestyle at different stages of life.
789MW.03 Develop and exhibit movement skills, demonstrating precision, control, fluency and variety in a range of familiar and unfamiliar physical activities.
Think about how you will deliver the activity in your classroom with your learners.
- How can you adapt the activity to build on what your learners already know or have covered?
- How can you adapt the activity to your own context, (e.g. resources available, culture, local requirements)?
- What language support might your learners need?
- What opportunities are there for cross-curricular links with other subjects?
- What else might you include to ensure your learners meet the learning objectives for this activity?
Use the Schemes of Work as a starting point for your planning. Adapt them to suit the requirements of your school and the needs of your learners. They suggest the types of activities you might use, and the intended depth and breadth of each multi-stage learning objective. These activities may not fill all the teaching time so you may choose to use other activities with a similar level of difficulty.
For more information on the approaches to teaching and learning in Cambridge Lower Secondary Physical Education, refer to Section 3.4 of the Teacher Guide.
Assessment Guidance
Assessment guidance provides support and advice on how to assess learners in the classroom, including:
- examples of how teaching and learning activities can be assessed
- approaches to recording achievement
- different approaches to reporting results.
There is no Cambridge Lower Secondary Progression Test or Checkpoint for this subject.
Find the Assessment guidance on the Physical Education (0081) page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site.
You can find more general information about Assessment guidance on the About Cambridge Lower Secondary page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site.
Assessment Guidance
Assessment guidance provides support and advice on how to assess learners in the classroom, including:
- examples of how teaching and learning activities can be assessed
- approaches to recording achievement
- different approaches to reporting results.
Find the Assessment guidance on the Physical Education (0081) page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site.
You can find more general information about Assessment guidance on the About Cambridge Lower Secondary page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site.
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