Essay On Benefits Of Physical Education

In this essay, the role and benefits of Physical Education and School Sport will be identified from in and outside the school curriculum. The benefits that pupils have gained from the national school curriculum, what has changed from the past to present day in schools and how it has affected Physical Education in School Sport will be discussed. Also, mental and physical health benefits that occur from Physical Education will be mentioned in this essay along with what the teaching standards were like and how Physical education has changed such as different teaching ways.
Physical education takes place in the school curriculum which is timetabled and taught to all school pupils. This involves a range of different skills, learning basic movements

“Children who exercise regularly have higher levels of self-esteem.” (Brown, W.J. & Brown P.R., 1996, p19). Teaching Physical Education can have immediate health benefits as it helps normalise body weight and body composition. Physical activity also promotes positive mental health. Both immediate outcomes may be useful in motivating physical activity practices so that they have long term benefits. One of the main benefits of physical activity is that “it keeps children involved and that it invariably makes you feel good.” (Brown, W.J. & Brown P.R., 1996, p19). Getting the correct amount of Physical activity in school hours will decrease the rates of obesity and will reduce the risk of diabetes, asthma, heart disease and other health related illness’. Regular exercise for children also helps their cardiovascular health and bone development. There is also evidence that Physical Activity has a positive effect on mental health in children, including reducing anxiety and depression and improving their mood. However, there is some evidence that for children who don’t enjoy Physical Education it can have a negative impact on their self-esteem and

‘Beyond 2012 – outstanding physical education for all’ makes recommendations for schools and the Department for Education to secure the quality of PE in schools and draws out improvements made to PE and sport over the last four years. The Department of Education are looking on making improvements which have generated from the London Games in 2012. They are hoping to make a new strategy for PESS to help pupils become more engaged in sporting activities in their school curriculum. The Government are advising class teachers to raise their expectations by setting more challenging and competitive PE lessons, so pupils increase their performance to a higher level. Also, to engage them in regular and high intensity activities for the full period they have been given in their timetable. As previous studies have shown, when schools were visited, teachers set activities that were too easy for children which led to boredom and lack of motivation and had no planned extra curriculum activities for the pupils. However, schools with the best PE provision had excellent PE lessons with extra curriculum hours set up for them. In 2014, there was a funding of £360,000 to train primary teachers to specialise in PE. This was to ensure children developed ‘a sporting habit for life’. Children's minister Edward Timpson said: "We have announced extra funding to create a second intake of specialist primary PE