As part of the PL Primary Stars aims of enhancing teachers' knowledge, skills and confidence to improve the provision of PE and School Sport our AfPE qualified staff offer a programme of mentoring support for delivery staff.

Essentially a 6 week programme that will identify an individual staff members needs leading to an individual development plan that will help increase confidence and delivery skills. 

Our aim is to help staff be more confident delivering educational activities in a practical setting to improve communication skills and help all children to be hooked on sport for life.

Case Study

Local school teacher Laura Sammon

Laura lacked confidence, knowledge and understanding of how to plan and deliver PE lessons and that she faced the additional challenge of her own negative experiences of PE and lack of confidence in her own sporting abilities associated with early experiences

‘PE was never my favourite subject and personally I didn’t like sports in school and it was either hockey or netball and if you weren’t any good then it was tough luck – so in school I never really enjoyed PE’.

Together we devised a programme that gave Laura lots of ideas on how to keep her pupils engaged and designed a pupil focussed programme of sessions that allowed Laura’s confidence to grow and for her pupils to become more engaged. 

‘I had very low confidence in delivering PE , we don’t get an awful lot of training as part of our teacher training and I just need ideas on how to keep the children engaged’

During the six week programme our PE mentoring staff worked with Laura to improve her confidence and ability to deliver a high-quality programme of PE focussing on planning, delivery and assessment to ensure she could improve her ability to confidently and consistently deliver high quality PE lessons that ensured all pupils were engaged, challenged and supported in their learning.

At the end of the 6 week programme Laura and our mentoring staff reflect on learning outcomes and progress to see how Laura now understands her role in a PE context and her ability to effectively lead and deliver an effective sports session.

‘This has really helped my confidence, I watched how the coaches work with the children as they have lots of experience and I’ve been able to increase my confidence significantly’.

Before working with the coaches I didn’t really have anything to compare with in terms of delivery and I now feel confident and comfortable enough to ask the coaches for that support and the children recognise that the coaches are very good and here to help staff and pupils improve.

‘I think everyone should have a PE mentor no matter how long you have been teaching especially as I know a lot of teachers that really lack confidence in delivering PE but it’s just like any other lesson except your outside -  it’s all about them having fun and keeping them engaged and on task’.

Listen to Lara's journey