The David Beckham Academy has added a School Zone.  According to the website, the School Zone has been designed by experts and is supported by the DfES.  In the School Zone are unique and extensive sets of teaching resources for football and health
and fitness.  All the materials are designed to complement the learning for
7-14 year olds and can be used on interactive whiteboards, as
individual online student activities or as print outs.

Registration is free, although you don’t get instant access.  Once registered you get ‘an exclusive Football Bank of Games developed by The David Beckham Academy Coaches and the vast range of interactive teaching aids for health and fitness accompanied by detailed teachers’ notes.’

Today I managed to sign our school up to a free trial of Bikeability.  Bikeability is a brand new national cycling award
scheme for Years 5 and 6 which before long will have thousands of children whizzing about
on their bikes and pedalling their way to success.

Bikeability is ‘Cycling Proficiency’ for the 21st century designed to give children the skills and confidence to cycle
safely in and around today’s modern roads and environment.  But it’s not just about teaching kids to ride a bike.
Bikeability has been introduced to help make cycling an everyday activity, an alternative mode of transport, a way to
keep healthy and above all lots of fun!

12 children will have 8 hours of cycling proficiency, 2 hours in the playground followed by 6 hours on the road.  Each child will also learn how to check that their bike is safe and receive a helmet from Warrington authority.

It’s currently only being trialled in a few areas, but is going to be rolled out across England soon.  You can signup for the latest news and information, including details of when it is available in your area, from the website.

Link: http://www.bikeability.org.uk/

A £494,000 scheme will be giving over 45,000 pedometers to those children who attend 250 primary schools in deprived areas of England in an attempt to tackle the obesity problem.  A special website has also to be setup that will chart their progress and sets targets
for their number of steps.

A scheme in 50 pilot schools showed 63% of children who took part had an increased interest in physical activity in their school. The Schools Minister, Jim Knight, said:

"Walking is one of the easiest ways
to exercise and pedometers can make it more fun for children. Schools are already increasing children’s activity levels by boosting the
opportunities to take part in PE and school sport.  Pedometers can be especially effective in encouraging young people to be
active out of school hours and at weekends."

I’ve been noticing on playground duty recently the lack of games the children seem to play.  There’s always the obligatory football and netball match going on and a few chasing games, but other than that not much.  There also seems to be an increasing number of children who just stand around bored or walk around with me.  When asked to go and play they say they’ve got no-one to play with or don’t know any games to play.

With this is mind I’ve started teaching them a few games that I used to play – Blocky 1,2,3 and Lobbers to name a few.  (Did anyone else play these games?)  While researching this and other games I came across Playground Fun – a site dedicated to playground games.  So if you’re not sure of the rules of a game or want a few more ideas for the children at playtime visit this site.

Remember playing is part of the fun -  join in with the children!

Link: http://www.playgroundfun.org.uk/default.aspx

Lazy Town is a CBBC programme which encourages children to eat healthy and keep fit.  After a suggestion for Julie I had a look at the Sportacus workout.   Julie commented on the Dame Kelly post that:

"My Y6 class are going mad for the Sportacus workout!!! The other night during Book Club we went into the ICT suite and one of the girls with a toddler-age brother showed some of the children the website and now they are all going on it at home! Bizarre – but it gets them moving!"

It’s certainly different and funny to watch. I’m tempted to use it at school in a PE lesson to see how the children respond!

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/funandgames/lazytown/

An intersting email from Teachers’ TV came though today advertising a new program presented by Olympic Champion Dame Kelly Holmes. The Get Physical series is a unique resource developed to help teachers at primary and secondary level raise standards in PE and school sport. The comprehensive twenty part series shows how different schools from across the country use truly creative approaches to engage pupils with sport. The sporting activities have great effect on pupils and the programmes demonstrate how learning can improve in all areas of the school curriculum as a result.

The series will be broadcast on Teachers’ TV starting from 15 January 2007.

Whole-School Effect : 15 January at 12.15
Firm Foundations : 16 January at 12:00
Engagement at Key Stage 1 : 16 January 12.15
The Two-Hour/Four-Hour Challenge – Primary : 16 January at 18.30
Healthy Primary School : 16 January at 18.45
Active Lunchtime : 17 January at 18:15
A Place for Competition : 17 January at 18.45 
Taking the Lead – Primary : 18 January at 18.00
Playing it Safe – Primary : 18 January at 18.15
The Inspector Calls – Primary : 18 January at 18.30
Everyone’s Included – Primary : 18 January at 18.45
Primary/Secondary Transition : 19 January at 12.00
Adults Other Than Teachers : 19 January at 12.15

For more information go to www.teachers.tv.

With sports day coming up for most of us don’t forget your certificates.  Sparklebox has released a set of free sports day certificates to save you time.  You can also create your own certificates online at http://www.senteacher.org if you want something a little bit different.

Are many people taking part in the Great School Run sponsored by Tesco on the 21st June.  It’s a 2km run that hopefully encourages the children to get fit and healthy!  Ordering the pack gives you a five week ‘work out’ leading up to the day. 

I don’t really understand it – money for taking children swimming through school has been cut back over the last few years.  Result = less children can swim = the Government blaming schools. 

How do they fix it?  By putting money back that was originally there! The Government have decided to invest £5.5 million pound to help teach those children that can’t swim 25m at the end of primary school.  Statistics say that one in five 11-year-olds in England cannot swim the required 25 metres.   Why didn’t they just leave the money there in the first place and allow children to have swimming lessons through the whole primary age phase.  I love the comment made:

"Trials have already proven that with extra lessons and smaller group numbers
more children are able to meet the minimum 25 metre requirement"

Why not have smaller groups in primary schools and give children extra lessons?  Sorry – one of those days!

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I found more World Cup resources in my pigeon hole today in the form of the Teacher magazine.  The resources are also available on the internet via the teachernet website.  What isn’t included on the internet is a large A1 World Cup poster.  The poster has each of the World Cup countries located with a space for each child to find where their country is, write the capital and some information they have found out about it.  On the right hand side is a space to record the results of all the matches leading up to the final.

You can order copies of this poster free from Prolog on 0845
602 2260, quoting reference DfES 0461 2006 POS-EN.  Don’t forget to check out the other resources available on the site.  These include: links to stats about each team / country, the national anthems among other ideas for lessons.