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Team activities: cooperating successfully

Lesson details

Learning outcome

I can complete tasks through teamwork by being cooperative.

Key learning points

  1. Move: moving in a variety of different ways requires coordination and agility.
  2. Think: tasks are completed when everyone on the team concentrates.
  3. Feel: trying our hardest throughout an activity requires self-belief.
  4. Connect: team success requires everyone in the team to cooperate.

Keywords

  • Coordination - the ability to move 2 or more body parts at the same time and move with others

  • Cooperate - working with others to achieve a shared goal

  • Success - trying your best, learning new things, and being confident

Common misconception

Pupils think they must be standing up to create letter shapes. When creating words, pairs make their letter shapes in the wrong order, or facing the wrong way, so that the whole word is not seen.

Letter shapes can be formed standing or lying down. Encourage teams to imagine that they are another team looking at their word, are all letters in the correct order and facing the same direction?

Teacher tip

Consider delivering lesson 3 in this unit before this one. Only progress to cycle 2 when pupils have had lots of practice using the body alphabet and are familiar with the body positions.

Equipment

Animal action cards and 3 letter word posters (additional materials)

Content guidance

Risk assessment required - physical activity

Supervision

Adult supervision required

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2026), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0
except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions
(Collection 2).

Prior knowledge starter quiz

4 Questions

Q1.
How can we succeed as a team?

shout instructions
Correct answer: cooperate with others
work separately

Q2.
How should we talk to our team members?

Correct answer: kindly
shouting
whispering

Q3.
How do we make sure we hear others’ ideas?

Correct answer: listen to them
look away
laugh at them

Q4.
What do we need to complete a task?

competition
Correct answer: concentration
correction

4 Questions

Q1.
What does cooperate mean?

eating together
walking together
Correct answer: working together

Q2.
What do we use to move our bodies with others?

Correct answer: coordination
direction
question

Q3.
What is team success?

Correct answer: everyone joining in
everyone walking away
everyone ignoring others

Q4.
What can we do to cooperate with teammates?

Correct answer: adapt our movements
refuse to adapt
work alone

To help you plan your 1 physical education lesson on: Team activities: cooperating successfully, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...