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You're standing on the shoulders of giants: An open letter to everyone involved in the curriculum review for GCSE and A-level PE
James Simms
Feb 25, 2026 4:45:00 PM
Please take a look at the title of this post. You're standing on the shoulders of giants. That's quite a claim, isn't it? Perhaps even a bit dramatic? Well, it's meant to be. Because I want to talk about something I believe will define the future of our subject: the rewriting of GCSE and A-level PE specifications; and I want to talk about it honestly, passionately, and without the professional filter that so often dulls what matters most.
This post is addressed to everyone with a hand in the curriculum review. Exam board staff. Review panel members. Civil servants. And the PE community. Colleagues watching from the staffroom, wondering what's coming next.
I want to make a very clear statement: before you rewrite a single line of these specifications, you must understand –truly understand– what you are rewriting and why it exists.
Let's be candid. I pushed hard to be part of this review. I wasn't selected. I was really disappointed. And now I find myself on the outside, watching, and I'll be honest with you, I'm scared. Scared that another round of mediocrity and confusion could be the result. Scared that people who don't truly know and feel the subject content will be the ones deciding what PE teachers teach for the next decade. That fear is what's driving this post.
I understand the temptation
Before I challenge anyone, I owe you a confession. Two confessions, actually.In 2016, when the draft specifications were published, I sat down and mapped out what lay ahead for myPEexam.org. Approximately 1,000 videos to record. In the region of 5,000 quiz questions to write. Multiple exam boards. Every topic. Every concept. Every nuance.
It's hard to express just how small a person can feel standing in front of such a gargantuan task.
And I remember the thought, fleeting, but real: Why does it have to be this much? Why can't they just simplify it? That thought lasted about 30 seconds. Then I got my head down, started the recording marathon, and, you know what, loved every second of it. Because the more I recorded, the more I realised that the depth was the point. The hard bits were the good bits. The complexity was where the understanding lived. Strip it away, and you don't make things clearer. You make them emptier.
But I felt that impulse to simplify. I understand it. And I suspect it's the same impulse driving some of the decisions being made right now.
Here's confession number two, and this one is harder to say publicly. From a business perspective, radical change is good for me. The more confusion there is, the more PE teachers need TheEverLearner.com. The more dramatic the overhaul, the more demand there is for what we provide. I could sit back and let this happen. Quietly. Profitably.
But I can't. Because I'm a PE teacher first and a business owner second. And I cannot stand by and watch the potential for mediocrity to prevail when better is possible.
The giants you're standing on
GCSE and A-level PE did not always exist. That might sound obvious, but I don't think we reflect on it often enough.In the 1980s, pioneers, teachers, academics, and lobbyists fought to establish Physical Education as a legitimate examination subject. These people are heroes. They argued, they lobbied, they built a case that our subject deserved the same academic credibility as biology, geography and history. And they won. Not easily. Not quickly. But they won.
On top of those foundations, textbook authors wrote the first generation of PE theory resources. Brilliant and dedicated teachers developed the first schemes of work, the first assessment models, the first approaches to teaching anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, and sport psychology to 16 and 18-year-olds. In the following years, sector leaders like Graham Thompson drove standards upward through relentless expectation and expertise. Thousands of PE teachers across the country refined their practice year after year, building accumulated professional knowledge that is worth something.
The 2016 specifications sit on top of all of that. Four decades of work. They are not perfect (in fact, I will name their flaws shortly), but they represent a decade of teaching, a community of expertise, and a foundation that took generations to build.
Here's the thing: if you don't understand why the current specifications say what they say, how can you be trusted to write something better?
Three things the reviewers must confront
Subject expertise is non-negotiable — and it's missing.In order to write a PE specification, one needs to truly understand and even feel the nature of the subject content. You need to be able to extract the core intuition of every concept, not simply recite it, not paraphrase it, but understand it deeply enough to know how it connects to everything else in the subject.
As far as I can tell, this is not consistently the case at the exam boards. And the evidence is everywhere.
Poorly written mark schemes, bizarre definitions of basic principles, command words in questions that don't match what the mark scheme actually rewards... Students are being assessed on their ability to guess what the examiner wanted, not on their understanding of the subject.
I have personally had to hold meetings with one major exam board to correct their misunderstanding of the time element of FITT — one of the most fundamental principles in physical training. I told them. And told them. And spent my time. And for a while, it seemed like I was just a troublemaker. But I was right. I spent weeks supporting another major exam board that, in 2024, published an updated specification document with approximately 100 errors in it. Once again, silently and in the background for no personal gain, I fact-checked the exam board and got them straight. I didn’t earn a penny, and I didn’t receive a thank you.
The consequence of this expertise gap goes far deeper than individual mark schemes. Because exam boards don't truly understand the content, our entire PE sector lacks a core, objective set of agreed facts. Biology has them. Chemistry has them. Geography has them. In PE, the "facts" are whatever the exam board chooses them to be, and often they are wrong. Really wrong. Students studying PE and biology simultaneously encounter different descriptions of energy, respiration, breathing and responses to exercise. That's not a minor inconsistency. That's a credibility problem for our entire subject.
"Accessibility" is not achieved by removing the hard bits
There is a belief, widespread among exam boards and, increasingly, among policymakers, that the way to make PE qualifications more accessible is to remove the challenging content. Strip away the difficult biomechanics. Simplify the physiology. Avoid the complex bits.This is, to put it bluntly, nonsense.
It is often the “hard bits” that unlock understanding. Remove them, and you don't create clarity; you create confusion, because students lose the conceptual anchors that make the simpler content make sense. Going back to my example of the time from FITT from earlier, the exam board in question literally argued that knowing it wrongly was “better” because it was easier for students to learn, despite it being completely wrong.
A-level biomechanics is the perfect example. It has been progressively watered down across specification cycles. And yet, taught well, with genuine subject knowledge and confidence, biomechanics is one of the most intuitive, rewarding, and genuinely thrilling areas of the entire A-level course. Students love it when they understand it. The problem isn't that the content is too hard. The problem is that we've lost confidence in our ability to teach it. That's a teaching problem, not a specification problem.
It's a crazy scenario when educators focus more on what students shouldn't learn than on the amazing things they could.
I want to dwell on this point for a moment and speak as loudly as I can to the exam board and review teams: Short of some really obvious examples of things that it is better for young people not to learn, such as hate and violence, no educator has ever dedicated themselves to what shouldn't be learned. If you find yourself in a PE GCSE or A-level review team and the conversation turns to what shouldn’t be or is hard to learn, there is something seriously wrong in that scenario. Educators are never focused on what not to learn. If they do, bluntly, they are not educators, and I feel it necessary to confront this truth here. Educators take every opportunity to cause learning that is as broad and impactful as the subject domain enables, and even that shouldn’t be a constraint.
The name matters more than you think
There are voices in our sector, some with significant influence, who believe that GCSE PE should be reimagined and renamed to reflect a broader, concept-driven vision of physical education. The argument is that "GCSE PE" no longer represents what PE has become in schools, and that a rebrand would better align the qualification with the direction of the subject.I understand the argument. I reject it.
The pioneers who established GCSE and A-level PE fought for the name Physical Education. That name carries decades of market presence, parental recognition, UCAS familiarity, school timetable identity, and teacher professional pride. It is not a label. It is a legacy.
The PE sector is not primed for a rebrand. The qualification has built recognition and respect over 40 years. A name change doesn't just alter a title, it severs the connection between what we've built and what comes next. It tells every teacher, every student, every parent, every university admissions officer: start again.
This is a biggy. And I urge colleagues to resist it.
What I would say to the reviewers
If I could sit across the table from every person involved in this review, here is what I would ask them to consider.1. Know the content you are writing. Truly know it. If you put it in a specification, you must understand what it means. Not superficially, but with the deep intuition that allows you to see how it connects to everything else. Specification writers who lack this depth produce mark schemes that contradict command words and definitions that confuse rather than clarify. This matters. If you find yourself in a review meeting or process and you can be honest with yourself to suggest that you don’t truly and deeply understand a concept, please don’t offer a terminal judgment on it. This would be unethical. I believe this is particularly the case with exam board staff who, ultimately, write the specification. If you don’t truly, intuitively and deeply understand, change that situation. I am here, and I will quietly support you.
2. The name matters. Do not rename GCSE PE. The pioneers who established this qualification fought for Physical Education to be recognised as an examination subject worthy of academic respect. Decades of market presence, parental recognition, UCAS familiarity, and teacher identity are built on that name. A rebrand serves a philosophical and ideological movement. It does not serve students, teachers, or schools.
3. Stop confusing accessibility with avoidance. Removing the hard bits does not make the subject more accessible. It removes the very content that unlocks understanding. Biomechanics taught well is intuitive and thrilling. Movement analysis without the spine is absurd.
4. PE needs an agreed, objective set of subject facts. Biology has them. Chemistry has them. Geography has them. PE does not because each exam board invents its own version of the truth. Students who study PE and biology simultaneously encounter conflicting descriptions of respiration, energy systems, breathing and effects of exercise. This is unacceptable, and it undermines the credibility of our subject.
5. The sociocultural elements of the current courses need genuine reform — not removal. The loss of historical studies content from A-level PE was a mistake in 2016. What replaced it is too often a list of evaluative points that students memorise rather than engage with. This area of the course deserves to be more intriguing and thought-provoking. Not less.
6. A-level biomechanics should be deepened, not further watered down. Students are capable of far more than we give them credit for. Taught with clarity and genuine subject knowledge, biomechanics is one of the most rewarding elements of A-level PE. Trust the students. Trust the teachers.
7. Movement analysis must include the spine. I will say this plainly: it is extraordinary that a subject built around the human body in motion does not require students to understand the structure that connects every movement they analyse. The spine has been omitted from movement analysis across every exam board. This needs to change.
8. Mark schemes must match command words. When a question uses "analyse" but the mark scheme rewards "describe", we are not testing understanding. We are testing luck. Students deserve to be assessed on what they know and can do, not on their ability to second-guess an examiner's intentions.
9. Honour the decade of teaching that sits on top of these specifications. Thousands of PE teachers have built schemes of work, recorded resources, refined lesson sequences, and developed hard-won expertise around the 2016 specifications. That accumulated professional knowledge has value. Change must be justified by evidence of improvement, not driven by fashion, convenience, or ideology.
10. Modernise wisely. The specs need updating. Sociocultural content needs refreshing. Assessment methods could be improved. I agree with all of that. But modernising a house does not mean knocking it down and starting in a field. You build on what's there. You strengthen the foundations. You don't pour petrol on them.
To those who want radical change
If you're reading this and you feel the current specs are outdated, I agree with you. But perhaps not in the way you expect.The specifications are outdated in specific, fixable ways. Sociocultural content needs to be brought up to date. Assessment methods need modernising. How we teach and examine should evolve with our understanding of learning and with the world our students live in.
But –and this is where I suspect we might disagree– we must not lose the incredible benefit we have from an established and respected subject at GCSE and A-level. That didn't happen by accident. It took decades to build. And it can be lost in a single review cycle.
I know how it feels to want change and feel powerless. I pushed to be part of this review. I wasn't selected. I understand what it's like to care deeply about something and watch from the outside. Many of you feel this, too. I know you do.
So here's what I'm asking: don't let frustration with the current specifications become fuel for dismantling what's good about them. Channel it into demanding that the reforms are wise, specific, and built on genuine subject expertise.
A starting point, not the final word
If I were advising the review panel directly, I would ask them to think carefully about what to protect and what to reform.
| Protect | Reform |
| The name "GCSE PE" and "A-level PE": recognition, identity, legacy | Sociocultural studies: refresh content, restore historical depth, move beyond memorisable lists |
| The scientific rigour of anatomy, physiology, and biomechanics |
Movement analysis: include the spine, improve conceptual coherence across exam boards |
| The principle that PE is an academic examination subject |
A-level biomechanics: deepen, don't water down further |
| The decade of accumulated teaching expertise was built on the 2016 specifications | Mark scheme quality: ensure command words and mark schemes genuinely align |
| The breadth of content that allows genuine understanding to develop | Assessment methods: explore how to test application and understanding, not just recall |
| The identity and professional pride of PE teachers |
Cross-subject consistency: align PE definitions with biology and chemistry where content overlaps |
This is my starting point. Not the final word. What would you add? What would you remove? I am genuinely asking.
I want to hear from you
I know this post challenges accepted positions, and I fully expect some of you will disagree with me, perhaps strongly. That's not only fine, but it's also valuable.If you think I'm being too protective of the status quo, tell me why. If you think I'm not protective enough, tell me that too. If you were selected for the review panel and you'd like to respond, publicly or privately, I would welcome that conversation more than you know.
Please use the blog comments below, or email me directly at james@theeverlearner.com. I read everything.
Our subject is worth fighting for. Not because the current specifications are perfect. They aren't! But because what they represent is the work of generations. The pioneers who built GCSE and A-level PE from nothing. The textbook authors who gave us our first resources. The teachers who refined their craft year after year. The sector leaders who demanded better. We are standing on the shoulders of giants, and we owe them the respect of understanding what they built before we decide what comes next.
Better is possible. Not by tearing down what exists, but by understanding it deeply enough to improve it wisely. Not by avoiding what is difficult, but by embracing what can be learned.
When I write posts like this, I wonder whether passion comes across as arrogance. I hope not. I hope it comes across as love for a subject that changed my life.
Thank you for reading.
Have a wonderful week and, if you're involved in this review, please know that the PE community is watching, hoping, and ready to help.
James