Your strengths as an athlete
Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can identify and explain my personal strengths as an athlete.
Key learning points
- Move: driving hard against the ground in the first strides helps you accelerate quickly at the start of a sprint.
- Move: settling into a relaxed rhythm early helps you to stay controlled and pace your 800m effectively.
- Think: assessing how your body responds to different levels of intensity enables you to make informed decisions.
- Feel: reflecting on your own abilities and limitations can provide a focus for self-improvement.
- Connect: helping others by timing their benchmarking supports accuracy and builds mutual respect.
Keywords
Reflection - thinking about your performance to help make decisions and improve
Personal strengths - the skills or qualities that make you good at certain tasks, like sprinting or pacing
Benchmark - a starting point or measurement you can compare to later
Common misconception
Pupils might believe that benchmarking times represent their fixed ability and that their times won’t change.
Encourage pupils to understand that benchmarking is a snapshot in time - a starting point that effort and hard work can improve (growth mindset).
Teacher tip
This unit is ideal for those considering GCSE PE as a KS4 option. It could be taught to those pupils while others do more traditional atheltics. Lesson 1 worksheet collates all worksheets needed for the unit and can be printed as a workbook rather than printing individual worksheets each lesson.
Equipment
stopwatches, worksheets, measuring tape, pens or pencils
Content guidance
Risk assessment required - physical activity
Supervision
Adult supervision required
Licence
Prior knowledge starter quiz
4 Questions
Q1.What do our hands move between when we use correct technique in sprinting?
Q2.What must we do when starting a middle distance to avoid tiring too quickly?
Q3.What type of exercise is the 100m sprint?
Q4.What does it mean if we run a negative split in the 800m?
Assessment exit quiz
4 Questions
Q1.What do your benchmark times show?
Q2.How can you support a partner’s benchmarking?
Q3.What helps you decide which event to focus on?
Q4.What is the 30m split benchmark used for?
To help you plan your 9 physical education lesson on: Your strengths as an athlete, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 9 physical education lesson on: Your strengths as an athlete, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom.
Explore more key stage 3 physical education lessons from the Athletics: fitness development of pace or power unit, dive into the full secondary physical education curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.