We recently hosted an online Webinar for PE Teachers to discuss Assessment in PE.

With special thanks to Santi Berry at St Mary’s College in Hull, and Alaina Lovatt at Westleigh School in Wigan, for their contributions and collation of information about what was discussed on the night!

Key Points

• Both schools had a holistic focus on PE, looking to develop individuals physical, affective and cognitive capabilities.
• Breadth and depth of curriculum experiences was important as well as mastery, success, enjoyment, participation, inclusion and leadership.
• Both schools had concerns about ‘fitting in’ to overall school assessment processes and setting targets based on English and Maths grades from KS2, as well as targeting children based on GCSE levels.
• Both schools had qualitative criteria linked to progression from a physical (hands), affective (heart) and cognitive (head) perspective.
• Authentic Core Tasks were used by Westleigh, at the start of a unit of work, so that the teacher can consider where the students are starting from and then plan work based on that information.
• Both schools shared the criteria used for assessment with the children.
• St Marys would like to add more information about the behaviour of children i.e. what activity they engage in both within school and in the wider community on a regular basis, as this can be considered to be the impact of PE.
• Westleigh provide more in-depth comments on reports that include extra-curricular contribution, attitudes to learning and next steps to focus on.
• It was suggested that if schools shared their assessment strategies with their feeder primary schools then there could be more consistency in relation to assessment and progress monitoring through Key Stages 1 – 4. Multi Academy Trusts should certainly have the potential to do this.
• It was noted that assessment drives how PE departments operate. An example of this is the focus on GCSE grades and how many secondary schools work towards these from year 7, because teachers are judged on their GCSE results rather than the impact they have on the majority of the students who have Core PE throughout their school career.