The Importance Of Physical Education Program

As stated by AusVELS (n.d.) the “Health and Physical Education domain provides students with the knowledge, skills and behaviours necessary for the pursuit of lifelong involvement in physical activity, health and wellbeing.” In order to provide students with these skills, knowledge and behavior’s the teachers of physical education need to ensure they are developing a well balanced and high quality physical education program. Students from prep through to grade 12 should have the opportunity to participate in a quality physical education program. It is the responsibility of the physical education teachers to develop sound and quality physical education programs that are successful, engaging, inclusive, developmentally appropriate and instructionally powerful so that they are designed to teach students about the importance of leading and maintaining lifelong involvement in physical activity, as well as health and wellbeing (Lambert, 2000).

NSW Department of Education and Communities (2011) states “children and youth need to be moderately to vigorously active for 3 x 20-minute sessions per week, in addition to the daily 30 minutes of accumulated activity time recommended.” Therefore it is important that physical education lessons promote high activity levels for majority of the lesson. Physical education teachers need to evaluate the ways in which they use the time available in physical education lessons as an opportunity to be vigorously active, to ensure they are being active as well as achieving the other learning outcomes of physical education (NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2011). Many of today’s physical education programs limit the amount of activity that they involve their students in, for example, students are...

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...quate equipment and facilities that will allow all students to benefit from maximum, overall participation and optimal practice and learning time to accomplish the goals of curriculum (Components of a Quality Physical Education Program, n.d.). Teachers should be selecting appropriate equipment based on their chosen activities to meet their set learning and development goals. Depending on the school, the types of available equipment and facilities will vary, however equipment should not determine the content of focus (Components of a Quality Physical Education Program, n.d.). If physical educators are put in the position where little equipment and facilities are available, it is the teacher’s responsibility to be creative in the ways in which they apply their equipment to ensure they are still providing their students with effective instruction and engaging lessons.