%20Text%20(Violet).png)
I am delighted to share this blog as a celebration of a full calendar year of blog posts, published every single Wednesday at 19:00 UK. Each and every blog is PE specific and this will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future.
I write blogs because I enjoy doing so. I also enjoy the experience of reviewing my writing and perceiving the improvements that, I hope, I am making. I love responding to PE teachers and having the opportunity to deliver on the themes that colleagues are unsure or concerned about. This often comes from what conversations are taking place online. Finally, I believe that I have some experiences that are valuable to others and that by sharing these experiences, some of the challenges of PE teaching can be demystified or even solved.
With these points in mind and, now, celebrating a whole year of writing, I am writing this post to draw your attention to a series of past posts and to share with you the themes that I will be writing about in the next 365 days. My future topics are there for you to comment on and make suggestions about and I urge you to do so.
2021 - 2022 Some of the highlights from each month
November 2021
Within my original posts, I focused on content. Take a look at these two examples:
The thinking was obvious: guide colleagues in the areas that they worry about the most. I also reignited the podcast and created The Changing Rooms show. My first two guests were Lee Sullivan and Phil Mathe:
December 2021
I tried to step things up. As well as posting about content such as the teaching of energy and also sharing podcasts such as my show with Shrehan Lynch, I also moved into the principles of teaching:
- ‘Changes to BTEC Sport - What every PE teacher needs to know’
- ‘Can A-level PE Lead to a Degree in Medicine’
The latter post about a medical degree remains my most-read post ever and is incredibly popular across a wide array of fields. This helped me to consider what types of content to write in the future and encouraged me to enter more provocative areas of content.
January 2022
I was really enjoying writing by January and I went to some of the areas of PE teaching that I love the most. Firstly, I wrote about assessment and then I returned to the content and principles of teaching:
‘The blog was doing really well and weekly reading figures averaged at over 500 reads per post per week meaning that PE teachers were reading my content in their thousands.
February 2022
February brought the most challenging experience I have ever had as a blogger. After a simple interaction online, I invited contributors for the first ever recorded debate about the teaching of PE. It was called The Debate Project and in essence was a discussion about the role of conceptual learning in PE. This conversation had ignited largely off the back of Lee Sullivan’s book, Is PE in Crisis?
The Debate Project episode 1 was published in early February and it was very widely read, watched and listened to. In fact, it is potentially the most impacting work that I have published outside of my core business.
Organising and hosting a debate is really not easy to do. Colleagues such as Lee Sullivan and Greg Dryer, as well as the other participants in the debate, gave a huge effort to this project and, to be honest, I felt I let them down with my moderation of the debate. I felt a little behind the conversation as it occured and, having watched it back plenty, I wish I had played more of an active role. But, we live and learn and I certainly learned from that experience. Despite the challenges, I now feel very proud of the show and I believe it stands up as an outstanding piece of work from all contributors.
To make February even more busy, the Advance Exam Information (AEI) was published by exam boards and I felt it essential to respond and I did so in the following ways:
I went further and published an OCR A-level version and, later, one for AQA A-level PE too. These posts were an absolute monster and are at a scale that I had not provided before. They also got read in huge volume averaging over 1,000 reads per week each. Let me tell you that this is not normal for a PE blog.
March 2022
In March, I wrote with two themes:
- I realised that teachers did not always simply want to read about a teacher who got everything right. Teachers wanted to read a real account of someone making errors and learning from them. For this reason, I wrote a post titled ‘20 mistakes I’ve Made in 20 Years of PE Teaching’. This post seemed to resonate with lots of colleagues, as it showed authenticity and vulnerability.
- The second theme was all about exam papers and I wrote both ‘How to Analyse Exam Papers’ and ‘How to Write Mock Exams in PE’.
So, I was now writing super practical posts combined with more narrativised content.
April 2022
April was probably the hardest month of blogging for me, as I was deeply invested in the free revision service that I was providing. Therefore, blogging was squeezed into moments of each day rather than being a primary theme. But I kept going and I published the following:
- ‘Ten Common Misconceptions in PE Teaching’
- ‘Cramming Before a PE Exam - What Works and What Doesn’t’
And I also published some new resources and asked for feedback.
May 2022
During May, I delivered 22 live revision shows. It was a massive undertaking but I kept blogging and, somehow, some super popular blogs were released:
The latter post, whilst simple and personal, proved really popular and teachers began sharing their opinions with me. I learned to be more interactive with my writing and to engage the reader more directly.
June 2022
June arrived and it was post-exam time. Therefore, I wrote about supporting students who had been disappointed with their performance. I also wrote my most provocative post to date titled ‘Is It Time for Homework in KS3 PE?’.
July 2022
Whilst holidays arrived for teachers, I kept writing but I did so in an easier style. I wrote about the risks I had taken in my career...
... and also a whole series on questioning techniques in PE classrooms:
- Questioning Techniques in the PE Classroom Part 1
- Questioning Techniques in the PE Classroom Part 2
- Questioning Techniques in the PE Classroom Part 3
My intention was to provide teachers with lighter, more discursive content as the holidays approached.
August 2022
During August, I tried to write useful material and I focussed on results days and wrote these two posts:
But I also wrote about budget management in PE and the need to be able to find resources in times of scarcity
September 2022
September saw the return to school and I tried to get teachers off to the perfect start by talking about the principles of my classroom…
…as well as publishing a fantastic case study from Hinckley School near Coventry.
October 2022
October arrived rapidly and I started the month writing about other negatives in my career. Sharing these stories seems to be popular with teachers and I aim to do this more often.
Later in the month, the podcast returned and a second show with now author Phil Mathe was recorded and published.
Now, In November, the blog is going from strength to strength and I aim to write and publish every week without fail. I am particularly interested in the following themes:
- Resources to support students with coursework
- Best practice for assessing practical performance
- Extended writing across PE courses
- Further content posts on how to teach axes, components of fitness and training
…and many other themes.
I also want readers to be aware that I have begun work on two book-length pieces. I am unsure whether I plan to publish these as books or simply release them by blogs but the experience of writing regularly has given me the confidence to broach this possibility.
One of the books I am working on will not surprise you. It features content related to best practice PE teaching. However, the other book is a piece of fiction and I am considering sharing this in successive blog posts over the summer of 2023, whilst teachers enjoy their holidays. The theme of the story is that of a murder mystery within a school. I realise this might surprise a few people but I am really enjoying writing it and, as it's written, why not share it and see what teachers think of it!?
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of the visitors to and readers of the blog. I would be very excited to receive a comment below including suggestions of themes and topics you would like me to write about.
Have a lovely day.
