Sport and physical activity has been something I have loved since I was young so I have never really thought too much about what motivates me because it has always just been a part of my life. I never thought about why others play sport or take part in physical activity -either you loved it or you didn’t. And if you didn’t, I couldn’t fathom why that would be.
I consider myself very lucky that I have, and continue to have, very positive experiences in physical activity and physical education. However, from my range of experiences to date, I know now that this is not the case for everybody for various reasons. Throughout my four years in college I have become increasingly aware of the fact that the more positive experiences children have of physical activity, the more likely they are to continue being physically active into adulthood (Leisterer and Gramlich, 2021). Something I think about is, what are the ways I can give people the most meaningful and positive experiences in physical education and physical activity? My answer, fun.
I have spent the last two years coaching an u12 and u13 girls soccer team. I have absolutely loved coaching the girls and I would say it has reinforced the idea that fun should be at the centre of physical activity. Success in coaching for me looks like smiles and laughter and if we happen to win a game, great! I want the girls to love sport and being active but I have learned that a girl may like soccer but LOVE chatting to her friends while at soccer and that is what keeps her coming back every week. There is a Ted Talk called ‘Echoes beyond the game’ that really stands out to me. Coach Reed talks about the role and impact of the coach on children and how “it’s not the skills you teach, it’s the words you use”. This really resonates with me because the girls having fun at training and matches if far more important to me than whether or not they’ve mastered the overlap or figured out the effectiveness of a through ball. If the girls walk away having had fun and excited to come back next week, then I feel like we won.
In a PE context, it is extremely important to me that fun is at the centre of the lessons. The long term objectives of PE are that children would leave school with knowledge, skills and abilities to be physically active for a lifetime but, for the most part, if something isn’t fun or enjoyable, it’s a big ask of them to persist with it for a lifetime.
While I was preparing to go out on my most recent school placement, I learned that the students in the school I was going to had not had the most positive PE experience and as a result, did not enjoy coming to PE. I thought about the positive things I was doing while coaching that facilitated fun, that I could carry over to teaching PE to give the students a more meaningful and enjoyable experience of PE and physical activity. For me, this looked like having a really positive attitude, having a strong sense of team and teamwork and giving the students the opportunity to have new experiences in PE.
A class that stands out to me is a third year group who I decided to do volleyball with. From talking to the class teacher I knew that the students hadn’t done volleyball before. From observing the class, I identified a wide range of skills and abilities so volleyball felt like the perfect opportunity to do something that the class had no experience of, positive or negative, where everyone in the class would be learning new skills for the first time. I also decided that the sport education model would be beneficial in creating a sense of team spirit and like everyone was working towards a common goal -the volleyball tournament at the end of the unit. Over the 6 weeks I felt a strong sense of satisfaction when I would see the students mastering the dig or the set and when they would try to implement the sequences they created in a game setting. However, the greatest indicators of success for me that the students were having fun were; the sound of laughter, their eagerness to know what we would be doing next week and their arrival at the PE hall ten minutes before class was due to start so they could practice (and find out which team was top of the leaderboard!).
A study done in 2006 identified fun as being one of the most important goals for both students and teachers in physical education (Garn and Cothran, 2006). A survey found that the main things that contributed to intrinsic fun in PE were, learning to do something they couldn’t do before, feeling competent and a chance to try new things (Garn and Cothran, 2006). The 2022 Children’s Sport Participation and Physical Activity survey also found fun and enjoyment to be among the top ranking reasons children took part in physical activity in Ireland (Woods et al, 2022). Even with my greatest attempts, I’m not sure that all my students would say that every class was fun. But, I think that is alright because if I planned everything perfectly and it was always fun, there would be no room for me as a teacher to learn and reflect. It is also not a realistic goal for myself to expect that the students will always be in the right place to have fun. Going forward, I think if my starting point is ‘what would my student have fun doing?’ then I’m on the right track.
“They may forget what you said, but not how you made them feel” -Carl W. Buehner
My students may forget exactly how to hold a badminton racket or when to use the dig or the set but, in ten years time, if they look back on their experience of physical education and are motivated to be physically active by the fun they had in Ms Farrelly’s PE class , I’ll call that a success.
References
Garn A,. and Cothran D., (2006). The Fun Factor in Physical Education. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education. Indiana University. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication 234576642_The_Fun_Factor_in_Physical_Education [accessed on: 15 March 2025]
Leisterer S., and Gramlich L., (2021). Having a Positive Relationship to Physical Activity: Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Age Predictors for Students’ Enjoyment in Physical Education. Faculty of Sports Science, University of Leipzig. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8309756/[accessed on:14 March 2025]
Woods CB, Ng KW, Britton U, McClelland J, O’Keeffe B, Sheikhi A, McFlynn P , Murphy MH, Goss H, Behan S, Philpott C, Lester D, Adamakis M, Costa J, Coppinger T , Connolly S, Belton S. and O’Brien W, (2023). The Children’s Sport Participation and Physical Activity Study 2022 (CSPPA 2022). Physical Activity for Health Research Centre, Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland, Sport Ireland and Healthy Ireland, Dublin, Ireland and Sport Northern Ireland, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Available at: Children’s Sport Participation and Physical Activity Study 2022 [accessed on: 15 March 2025]
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