10 blogs every new GCSE PE teacher should read this summer

New to teaching GCSE PE theory this year? Grab a drink (a cocktail, a beer, an iced tea… whatever floats your boat!), put your feet up, and bookmark these ten posts. They're some of the most useful things we've written for exactly this moment, to help you feel confident as you return to school for the new academic year, ready to teach GCSE PE for the first time. I certainly wish that I’d had access to some of these resources when I first started out as a classroom PE teacher (many years ago now!).

1. Teaching Levers in PE - Part 1 ↗️ (and Part 2 ↗️)
Levers trip up new teachers every single year, mostly because the concept feels more mathematical than sporting. This post breaks the topic into planning, resources, and teaching ideas built around Rosenshine's principles, ready for you to implement straight away. Useful for building a lesson that sticks, giving students the opportunity to explore the concept of levers whilst being grounded in application. 

2. Teaching Planes in PE Theory Lessons - James's Ten Top Tips ↗️
Planes of movement are simple in theory but notoriously confusing for students. This post demystifies the topic with practical strategies that you can take straight into your lessons. A great companion to the levers post above, since the two topics often get taught back-to-back.

3. Classification of Skill in PE: Setting the Standard ↗️
Skill classification sounds abstract until you connect it to sports your students already play. This post shows how to set a clear, consistent standard for teaching the topic from the very first lesson, and provides a fantastic opportunity to teach the skill continua through application.

4. Extended writing examples for your GCSE PE Course
(Part 1 AQA GCSE PE ↗️, Part 2 Edexcel GCSE PE ↗️, Part 3 OCR GCSE PE ↗️)
Extended writing is often an area that creates fear for both GCSE PE teachers and their students alike, and something that frequently gets left until later in the year. Once you're familiar with the writing frames (click here to download your free copies for AQA GCSE PE, OCR GCSE PE and Edexcel GCSE PE), this post builds on these writing frames to give you worked examples across different question types and mark totals. Useful for building a bank of model answers you can reuse and adapt across different topics.

5. How I Teach Diet and Nutrition in PE ↗️
This post keeps the science relevant to sporting performance, keeping your students engaged and exam-focused. A great post to revisit whenever this topic comes up in your GCSE PE course.

6. My PE Classroom Part 1: The Word Wall ↗️
Beyond what you teach, there's the question of how your classroom supports learning day-to-day. This post is a simple, low-effort way to help students absorb terminology just by being in the room. A gentle, practical starting point if you're building your theory classroom from scratch.

7. The CUB Technique: Earning PE and Sport Students Extra Exam Marks Right Now ↗️
Every new teacher wants a quick win they can use immediately, and this technique delivers exactly that. It's a simple, repeatable method for helping students pick up marks they'd otherwise miss. Great for building early confidence for both you and your students.

8. Ten More Misconceptions in PE and Sport Teaching ↗️
This post runs through some of the more common misconceptions so you can sidestep them before they become habits. A reassuring read and proof that these mix-ups happen to everyone, not just you!

9. Teaching "Guidance" in Your PE Classroom ↗️
Guidance is one of those topics that sounds straightforward until students confuse visual, verbal, manual, and mechanical types under exam pressure. This post breaks down effective strategies for teaching each type clearly and explains why the distinctions matter for exam marks. A useful one to revisit whenever guidance comes up alongside skill acquisition or feedback topics.

10. Free resources page ↗️
Beyond individual blog posts, this dedicated page collects all of TheEverLearner's free, exam-board-specific resources in one place. This includes infographics, revision materials, extended writing frames and ready-made exam questions you can download and use straight away. It's the fastest way to get your hands on ready-made materials without needing to search the blogs one post at a time. Subscribe to our free resources page directly and new resources will land in your inbox as soon as they're published, rather than you needing to go looking for them.

Conclusion

Reading list sorted for the summer? The next step is making sure you've got structured support behind you for whichever exam board you teach. If you're on AQA, OCR and Edexcel, our Teacher Academy introductory courses take you through the specification and exam papers step-by-step, as well as offering subject knowledge courses to deepen understanding. 

Ready to explore what's there? Start your free trial of Teacher Academy and see which course fits where you are right now.

Thanks for reading - and let us know which of the blogs above you've found most useful.

Kim