Lesson video

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I'm Mr. Wnuk here, and in today's lesson we're going to be looking at semaphore.

Let's do this.

If you're unsure about doing any of the activities in this lesson, make sure you have a trusted adult nearby when you start them.

This lesson should take place indoors, such as in your living room.

You should ensure there's space for you to work safely, including overhead.

Use bare feet, not socks.

Make sure the floor is not slippery.

Wear comfortable clothing, put hair up if needed, and remove any jewellery.

Pause this video now, if there's anything you need to do to get ready.

For today's lesson, you're going to need to be in your regular PE gear, such as your shorts and T-shirt.

If you're doing this session indoors, make sure you are barefoot.

If you're doing it outdoors, please make sure you've got appropriate footwear on.

The equipment you're going to need today includes some writing equipment, something to time yourself with, such as your phone.

You also need something you can wave around, like a flag.

So some socks or a couple of T-shirts would be great.

The space you're going to need around you is about 2 metres.

Please pause the video, if you need to go and grab any of this equipment right now.

For this lesson, we're going to need to do a bit of a warmup.

So let's get into our warmup.

If you can remember the stages of warmup from all the other activities we've done, you should find this easy.

Can you remember what stage one is called? That's right, it's called the pulse raiser.

Then stage two, the picture will help you out if you can't remember it.

It is called stretching and mobility.

Now, typically you would do stage three, which is the skill-related practise.

As we're not actually doing sport, we're doing OAA, it's going to be difficult for you to do the skill-related practise.

So I'd like you to pause the video and just do stage one and two of your warmup, which is your pulse raiser and some stretching and mobility, particularly focusing on your arms, trying to get them mobilised.

Pause the video now and do a bit of a warmup.

Okay, so let's have a look at what this lesson's going to look like today.

Well, you've already completed your warmup, and we're going to get into our activities, which is all about semaphore and communication.

And we're going to work on our semaphore alphabet.

We're going to then practise some sending some messages, which is where we're going to increase our practical input.

And then we're going to finish up with an exit quiz.

So our first keyword for today's lesson is semaphore.

I've said it already once or twice.

Now, let's figure out what it is.

And this is a method of communicating messages using flags.

And it comes traditionally from naval communication, where people would communicate between ships, using flags as a nonverbal communication tool.

And it is still used today, particularly when they don't want to break radio silence.

So activity 1 is the semaphore alphabet.

Now, what you're going to need is the items that you're going to use as your flags.

So maybe two T-shirts or a pair of socks would be fine.

I'm going to show you the alphabet, and then I'm going to get you to copy it.

So I'm going to face you to show you one letter, and then I'm going to face away from you to show you how to copy it.

And I would like you to copy that letter.

So grab your stuff and then join me for a bit of semaphore.

So you've got your flags.

We're going to do some semaphore now.

So our T-shirts are flags, we're going to do some semaphore.

First letter is A, so I'm going to demonstrate, so you can see what it looks like.

Now, we're going to copy it, and I'll turn around so you can copy it.

Brilliant stuff with that semaphore communication, awesome.

Now, let's have a look at this question, true or false, the use of semaphore flags is an example of verbal communication.

Well, the answer is false.

It's actually non-verbal communication.

So when you're communicating with semaphore, you're not using your voice to communicate, so it is non-verbal.

So our keyword is non-verbal communication, and it is communication without words.

And this can include language, body language, sorry, gestures, movements, and visual communications.

So just think about when you might give a gesture with your hands, which might mean something non-verbally.

And I'm talking about big thumbs up, yes.

Or a hello, when you go hi.

So things like that is non-verbal communication without using the words.

So this is, and we've practised the alphabet, this is a picture of all the alphabet on one page, and this is available for you to download on the Oak website.

Now, I would strongly urge you to either print this out or quickly sketch some of these out, or sketch them all out in stick figure format, so you know the alphabet.

We're going to try to decipher this three-letter word Did you figure it out? It was oak, O-A-K.

If you figured it out, great work.

Now it's your turn.

Awesome stuff, you've decoded my message.

And I hope you understood it.

Now, we're going to look at how to send a message.

Right, let's get on with this task.

You're going to pause the video, and you're going to speed challenge this message.

So you're going to write out a message.

I want you to decode it into semaphore.

You might need to skip back a few minutes on the video to try and have a look at that slide where it had all the different alphabet letters.

You're going to time yourself and send the message as quick as you can.

Start by sending your name as a practise.

And then I want you to time yourself in sending a two-word message, move up to three words, move up to four words, and then move up to five words.

And you can even record yourself on your videos and put your video at the end of a room, and your camera at the end of your room, record yourself and then see if you can decode it and make sure your message is right.

This is a speed round, so send the message as quick and clearly as possible.

If you've got someone in the house with you who wants to play along, then that's great, and you can work on communication as it should be, between two people.

So pause the video, crack on with our task, and then rejoin me once you've done it.

Right, this is going to be a challenging one, which of these letters or which of these semaphore positions is the letter A? Is it option 1, option 2, option 3, or option 4? Now, you're going to have to rack your brains in this one and think carefully about when we practised it.

Well, the answer is option number.

Point to the screen, touch the screen, wherever you think it is.

Number one.

Well done, if you got that one right.

Fantastic work, fantastic memory.

That's a tricky one, that one.

Well done.

Okay, let's have another go at our semaphore messages and challenges.

So you are going to write out and decode a message to be sent, and choose a sentence from a book.

They are those things on the shelves that are made of paper, and they have words in it.

We're not talking about computers.

We're talking about an actual book.

So find a book in your house or in your building, and find a sentence from that book.

It can be anything, cookbook.

Then you're going to decode it.

Place your semaphore alphabet on the other side of the room.

And I suggest you face it away from you, so when you look down at it, it's in the same shape that you're going to be making.

You're going to go to the other side of the room, the other side of your semaphore alphabet.

And every time you send a letter, you need to run to the alphabet sheet and complete the relevant fitness challenge before running back to send the letter.

Time yourself and see how quickly you can send the message.

Now, those fitness challenges are also on the Oak Academy website on the downloads.

So it gives everything you need.

So there's your task.

Enjoy it, it's going to be hard work.

It's going to use your mental processing and your hard work, physical exercise.

And it's going to be improving your communication skills, which is one of our key life skills we are working on.

So for that task, I want you to think about these reflective questions.

How can you make communication most effective? And I'm talking about verbal and non-verbal.

How can you combine the two to make it the most effective way you can? How would being able to send a non-verbal message be useful in other situations? Think about all the sports where they may use flags, for example, as a non-verbal message, the system referees in football, for example.

In athletics, they use flags to show where a relay handover has taken place appropriately.

The field judges also use flags to tell people whether the implement that someone's just thrown, like a javelin or a discus is inside the boundaries.

Now, why are they using them? And why is it useful to use them in these situations? There are other non-verbal communications used in sport, so just pointing and using whistles as well.

So think about those situations.

And then how confident are you at being able to send a message effectively, using non-verbal communication? So today we looked at how to use semaphore flags, and we broke it down into our key life skill, which is communication.

And we focused on the non-verbal side of communication.

We then learnt the semaphore alphabet, and you practised decoding and sending messages.

And then we added in some fitness challenges in there as well.

So I hope you've learnt something new today about how to send messages non-verbally, and hopefully you've got some exercise out of it as well.

So well done in today's lesson, and I will see you in the next lesson.

I've finished the video