Balanced competition
Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can respectfully participate in balanced competition.
Key learning points
- Move: taking smaller steps and keeping a low centre of mass when cornering in a slalom will help to maintain balance.
- Think: to overcome conditions that are placed upon an individual or a team, problem solving and teamwork is required.
- Feel: embracing challenges will enable you to make more progress, building a greater sense of achievement.
- Connect: adapting competitive situations to make them more balanced maintains motivation and enjoyment levels.
Keywords
Balanced competition - conditions are applied to teams or individuals to ensure fairness and equal chances of winning
Respect - regard for the feelings, wishes or rights of others
Challenge - something that needs great mental or physical effort in order to be done successfully and therefore tests a person's ability
Common misconception
Pupils seek the easiest opportunity to guarantee a win.
Winning an unfair or unbalanced race/competition is a hollow victory and greater satisfaction comes from winning a balanced contest where both individuals/teams have a good chance of winning.
Teacher tip
Reward effort over outcome. Encourage pupils to make the decision to maximise challenge in favour of choosing the path of least resistence to maximise the chance of winning. This will develop a culture of challenge and risk taking where a positive mindset is more important than performance levels.
Equipment
30+ cones; selection of balls that could include footballs, handballs, basketballs, tennis balls etc.
Content guidance
Risk assessment required - physical activity
Supervision
Adult supervision required
Licence
Prior knowledge starter quiz
4 Questions
Q1.What is it called when you achieve individual records in events or specific skills?
Q2.What is a good indicator of actively participating, sharing skills and supporting others?
Q3.What do you need to know before being able to plan tactics for a game?
Q4.What can shifting the focus away from the outcome of a competition cause?
Assessment exit quiz
4 Questions
Q1.How can you maintain balance when running a slalom?
Q2.How might a team feel if they win too easily due to low levels of challenge?
Q3.If a team is finding a competition too easy, how could challenge be increased for that team?
Q4.What do you show if you play fairly and follow the rules?
To help you plan your 8 physical education lesson on: Balanced competition, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 8 physical education lesson on: Balanced competition, 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 Inclusive sports: teamship, communication and awareness of others unit, dive into the full secondary physical education curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.