Adapting PE lessons using C-STEP

Explore the different ways you can adapt your PE lessons to meet pupil needs

Contents

Introduction

Communication

Space

Task

Equipment

People

Introduction

All pupils should have access to high quality, engaging and inspirational PE lessons. This page explores different ways that you can adapt your lessons to meet the needs of your pupils and respond to varying contexts to ensure provision is always fully inclusive.

This is important for all pupils but especially those with SEND to ensure an appropriate level of challenge. This will enable learners to access and enjoy lessons, becoming more competent in a range of skills and therefore having the confidence and motivation to take part in sport and physical activity.

Here are some top tips for using C-STEP in your teaching:

Communication

1. Use inclusive language such as;

• ‘Fair play’ rather than ‘sportsMANship’ and ‘player-to-player’ rather than ‘man-to-man marking’
• ‘Try this’ or ‘can you do this’ instead of  saying ‘just do this’ as it is not as easy as ‘just’ for many pupils.

2. Provide examples of role models within activities from a diverse range of backgrounds, ethnicities and (dis)abilities.

3. Acknowledge and celebrate the achievements of pupils linked to Move, Think, Feel and Connect to allow all pupils to make good progress and feel recognised rather than focusing too much on physical performance.

4. Remember the power of a visual demonstration at full and half pace, you can play our video clips with and without narration or even better reconstruct yourself/with your pupils to demonstrate live. It often works best to practise before calling the whole class round to watch.

5. Provide a clear explanation of tier 3 language that we sometimes take for granted and can be hard to understand for EAL pupils or those not immersed in playing/watching sport. Some keywords can be found at the top of the lesson guide with simple age appropriate definitions but you will likely use many other terms within the lesson that may be unknown to some (e.g. pass backwards in rugby, reverse pass in rugby or one-two in football).

6. Think carefully about WHO needs to see models and demonstrations? Intervene and communicate this support as and when it’s needed.

7. Build sufficient time during and at the end of lessons for a reflective discussion about what has been learnt but also how it felt to help influence positive experiences and hence healthy, active habits beyond the lesson.

Space 

1. Assuming pupils have the correct footwear, lessons could generally be held on a grass field, netball or tennis courts, indoor hall or playground. Changing the surface can change the difficulty of the task e.g. hockey is much quicker indoors than on a 3G astroturf.

2. You can change the space used for an activity by doing the following:

• increase or decrease the length and width of the playing area (using court lines, cones, markers, boundary fences etc)
• increase the length of a swimming area to challenge stronger swimmers
• increase the distance to a goal to make a shooting task more difficult
• increase the distance between pieces of gymnastics equipment to make transitions more of a challenge.

3. Remember, not all individuals or groups need to use the same size space (e.g. a pupil finding something difficult could make use of the tramlines as in playing tennis whereas a more able pupil might only be allowed to hit into the right hand service box).

4. Where space is limited or confined, consider a rotation of pupils and smaller group sizes. Remember to provide officiating, coaching or analysing roles to any individuals not ‘playing’ to ensure they are still fully engaged in the learning process and keep any queuing to an absolute minimum.

Task

For specific task adaptations, please see the lesson guide. This is where suggestions for making the task simpler and more complex can be found. General examples of how you can make a task more challenging include:

1. Change the rules of the activity (e.g. everyone must touch the ball before the team can score).

2. Increase or decrease the time allocated to complete a task or outcome of the task e.g. create a 20 second dance rather than a 30 second dance to make it easier, or decrease the time given for a dribbling task to make it harder.

3. Challenge pupils to complete things in more/less attempts e.g. you should score after 2 passes instead of 3. Repetition and overlearning can be particularly impactful for pupils with SEND.

4. Change the complexity of the activity e.g. standing long jump versus long jump with a run up.

5. Change the limb used to complete the activity e.g. use a non-dominant hand.

6. Increase or decrease the number of times a task should be completed e.g you have to score 10 shots in the netball shooting drill then 12 the next time.

7. Change the direction, tempo, or  height of movements in dance or gymnastics.

8. Empower pupils to give ‘superpowers’ or rule modifications to individuals who need it.

9. Consider modifying the task to extend or simplify the ‘think’, ‘connect’ and ‘feel’ elements and not just ‘Move’.

10. Ensure that risk assessments are carried out and that tasks are suitable to playing areas, and consider weather conditions. e.g. a hockey session may be unable to take place on a frozen astroturf, and could be adapted to be an indoor hockey session with rules and equipment amended to include no hitting/lifting of the ball.

Equipment

Some examples of how you may adapt the equipment used in different activities include:

1. In any ‘ball skills’ or ‘donor sports’ unit, all activities can be applied using a range of suitable sized and weighted balls such as netballs, dodgeballs, basketballs, footballs, rugby balls, handballs etc.

2. To make catching activities easier, use lighter, larger and/or slightly deflated balls or bean bags or even balloons when introducing volleyball.

3. To make dribbling easier, use larger and heavier balls (e.g. futsal ball)

4. You can use a variety of goals for different sports (e.g. football goals, rugby try lines and netball hoops or even spots to mark out scoring areas).

5. Increase or decrease the size of the target, scoring area or goal to achieve the right level of challenge.

6. Change the height or arrangement of equipment e.g. when using gymnastics apparatus for parkour.

7. Change the equipment used e.g. use a tennis racket instead of a rounders bat to make it easier to strike. This does not have to be the same for all pupils.

8. Be creative if you don’t have the equipment needed e.g. if you don’t have tennis nets, lower badminton nets or use benches.

9. Change the weight of the equipment e.g. shot put. *never exceeding NGB guidelines.

10. Ask pupils what they think and what changes could be made to the equipment to support them.

People

Consider who is involved in the activity, their relationships with the group and varying ability levels when thinking about ‘people’ in the following ways:

• Working together in bigger groups is often harder, especially when introducing a defender in games activities or creating sequences in dance or gymnastics.
• Additional roles such as being a leader or an umpire can often provide more challenge.
• Mixed ability pairs are a nice way to get pupils to develop social skills and learn/teach each other.
• Games activities often start with an overloaded attack (e.g. 3v1) and then groups can add additional players once they have had initial success (e.g. 3v2 then 3v3 or 2v2). Remember to think carefully about group sizes to make transitions between tasks easy and hence avoid time wasted reorganising groups.
• More confident performers can be given some of the adaptations to task or equipment e.g. swimming a longer length.
• Ask the pupils what works for them in terms of being included and if they feel something needs adapting if they are finding it hard.