I became Head of PE faculty in September 2021 in my tenth year at my current school. This followed seven years as 2nd in PE and three years involved in other whole school projects, most notably launching a house system and a digital technology project. My focus was starting to drift away from PE. I was genuinely unsure whether I wanted to thrust myself back into the heart of subject-based middle leadership. I decided to take the opportunity, giving up my involvement in both whole school projects.

One year on, I couldn’t be happier in my job.

This blog is my reflections on that first year. It is a chance for me to reflect on the journey I have been on, and hopefully it might help someone else in a similar position with their journey.

Context

My school is a large (and growing) mixed secondary academy. Like every school, it has spent this year re-establishing a sense of normality following 18 months of unimaginable disruption. Behaviour has been worse. Student resilience has been worse. Routines, traditions and school cultures have been affected immeasurably. It felt a daunting time to become a head of faculty.

In PE, we have spent the last 3 years following school policy of shifting to a knowledge-rich curriculum, implementing knowledge organisers and age-related expectations. This knowledge-rich curriculum saved us during remote learning as it gave us purpose to continue lessons with students when working with them physically was nigh-on impossible. Year 7 students were learning about fitness components and effects of exercise, year 8 students about training methods, axes of rotation and the circulatory system.

Whilst I wasn’t the instigator of moving in this direction, I was complicit in it. As 2nd in PE, I worked with the head of faculty to bring these changes in. However, there was always a part of me that felt unsure of the direction we were moving. Why didn’t I voice it at the time? Because my head was elsewhere, immersed in non-PE decision making. 9 years of working in the PE department had left me stagnating, forgetting why I became a PE teacher in the first place.

Becoming head of PE, getting rid of the other distractions, forced me to address these issues head on. For the first time in 3 years, my leadership responsibility required me to focus on one goal instead of three, and it felt like a breath of fresh air!

Early Priorities

I wasn’t a new face in the department. I didn’t require time to “get the lay of the land” and assess the strengths and weaknesses of the faculty. I already knew them, and identified our most important priority right away.

Get students moving as much as possible.

Activity was going to become the lynchpin that underpinned everything we did. Now, this might sound strange coming from a PE faculty where it should be a given, but the context outlined above suggested otherwise. We had allowed our core purpose to become lost, hijacked by what others outside our subject felt was best. I wanted to regain autonomy over what our subject looked like on the ground. Coming out of a pandemic, the national mood around children’s activity levels served as a stark reminder for many about the power of organised PE. For so many students, it is a transformative part of the curriculum that had been lost for too long.

So how did we prioritise this?

  1. Overcommunicate to staff. Our goal is to get kids moving again. Everything else is background noise. Staff were given license to make this the driving force of their lessons.
  2. Curriculum flexibility & staff autonomy. Teaching a class and don’t think an activity is right for them? Then change it. Justify to me first, and then change it. Trust staff to know what is best for their group, whilst also ensuring they are following the curriculum intent.
  3. Prioritise extra-curricular engagement. My school (and district) was slow to get back on the extra-curricular train, for many reasons. We wanted students to get a buzz about coming to clubs again. We used multiple avenues to push this with them, and I’m sure none of them are any different to most departments. The difference was we made it an explicit intention to push after years of staff getting into a rut with club delivery.
  4. Make the curriculum intent explicit. Our curriculum intent was always correct, but it was only words. We weren’t embodying it. “Get kids being active for life” etc etc. Faculty time has been used to share the curriculum intent all year long. Teachers have been told to challenge anything they are putting their precious time into that doesn’t support our curriculum intent. Staff have been given a clear directive that it is our curriculum intent, and if they don’t agree with it they should suggest an alternative. Buy in to the core message has been deliberately explicit.
  5. Buy in from above. I am very lucky to have a line manager who is an ex-PE teacher with a similar philosophy to mine regarding the purpose of our subject. Upon starting the job, I was asked to create a faculty improvement plan off the back of last years plan. Within 6 weeks of the Autumn term, I voiced I didn’t agree with the foci on the FIP and wanted to move us in a different direction. I provided justifications for why, and asked for his trust to allow me to change it. Communicating your vision to senior leaders is vital because without them, you are always going to be met with resistance.
  6. Ask the students what they want. This one felt like a real lightbulb moment for me. In November I realised we hadn’t gathered explicit student voice of our subject in years and sought to change that. The advances in online learning platforms such as Google Classroom now mean we have a direct communication channel to students, and we have utilised that this year to find out what students think about our subject. Activity preference questionnaires. Thoughts on changing room routines. Information about swimming and cycling proficiency. Grouping surveys. We have made many short term changes following the feedback and are considering further long term changes. It has been truly eye-opening.
  7. Stop cover lessons being in a classroom. This is one I was really passionate about as it had crept in over the last few years. COVID was used as an excuse because we couldn’t double up lessons due to space. This year, I can hand on heart say only one lesson has been put in a classroom (on a day when the whole PE department were out hosting district athletics!). Doubling up? Strategically, checking in on staff to make sure they are comfortable. Training cover supervisors? previously a culture existed where they didn’t do practical PE. I challenged that, and one now does regularly, following lots of support. Push for the recruitment of “PE cover”? No success in this department yet, but I will try again the next time a vacancy comes up.

What has gone well?

Sometimes we forget to look back and consider the improvements that have been made. Here are some of my highlights.

  1. Lunchtime clubs. These have never existed at my school due to a short lunch time, and PE staff were voluntarily doing paid duties at lunch instead. I pushed for lunchtime clubs to be considered equal to a duty (even though we all know it’s actually more work, but still), meaning staff would be paid comparably. The leadership team were supportive, allowing us to put on football, table tennis, basketball, badminton, fitness gym access every lunchtime throughout the year. We have had 300+ students involved in lunchtime physical activity that previously would not have been. If you don’t get paid for a lunchtime club, challenge it. I made it 100% clear to my staff these would be voluntary and no one would ever be expected to do a lunchtime club whilst I am HoF. All of them chose to buy in for at least 2 days a week.
  2. Swimming proficiency. A huge knock-on effect of the pandemic was hordes of children missing out on swimming lessons. As a school with a 25m pool we identified this as a problem we could help fix. Working with our sports centre, with significant support from our Local Authority, we have provided weekly swimming lessons to any student identified as a non-swimmer. Completely free. The first step was asking parents to identify their child as a non-swimmer before then inviting them to sessions. Initially these were run by the PE department but with funding gained through the LA, we were able to pass it on to our sports centre swim teachers. We now have around 20 students from years 7-9 indentified as non-swimmers taking part in swimming lessons every week, on top of their curriculum offer of 6-8 lessons.
  3. Community Leader role. This one I can’t take all the credit for, but in conjunction with my line manager and principal, we created a new role this year to tackle falling activity levels across our extended community. I could write a whole blog about this role, but the headline figures are this. a PE teacher in our department has had teaching time reduced in half to focus on raising activity levels across our community, including liaising with primary schools and the sports centre. His brief is to organise trips, experiences, CPD, bid proposals and newsletters with one simple goal – raise the physical activity levels of our extended community. It has been paid for using some of the recovery money afforded to schools post pandemic, and it would not have been possible without support from the principal and governors in what we are trying to achieve. Officially the role starts in September 2022 but my highly capable colleague has already begun significant strides. His first major project is to get a fleet of bikes to use on school site from next year, and this is looking likely by Christmas 2022. I am extremely proud of this role, and it just goes to show that where there’s a will, there’s a way.
  4. Kit room. Routines for changing were tough at the start of this year as students came to school in PE kit last year on days they had PE lessons. Getting students back into routines regarding changing rooms and kit organisation was tough. We had a lot forgetting kit and feeling anxious about changing rooms, all of which left a negative stain on what we were trying to do in lessons. 4 months in the planning, I created a fully stocked kit room, with clear systems for what students should do, and how staff need to police it. The transformation has been remarkable, but it must be stressed, we didn’t launch this until we were fully ready. Sourcing old kit; requesting the PP fund be used to buy kit; getting site team on board to fit the room; getting a washing machine fitted; roping in science technicians to help with washing; having a clear sanction system for staff to administer; installing lockers to store kits for particularly forgetful students. All of this took great time and energy, but has proven completely worth it. We are down to about 7 students across all of KS3 who do not regularly wear kit for lessons, out of 850.

What hasn’t gone so well?

  1. Assessment. It didn’t take me long to realise our assessment policy was not fit for purpose and did not serve our curriculum intent. That realisation has led to this year being simply “do the bare minimum to appease senior managers”. That hasn’t been fair to the students, but I was clear that for it to be implemented properly I would need time. That time was granted in the Summer term and I am in a position to implement an assessment system in September that not only fits into our whole school model but also meets our curriculum intent much better than ever before. I hope to blog about it when I find time in the near future!
  2. Girls extra-curricular engagement. For whatever reason, girls at our school have not taken up the opportunities presented to them in the way boys have. Lunchtime clubs have led to almost exclusively boys attendance. We have tried to tackle that with girls only days e.g. fitness gym on Friday, but getting very few attending; girls only sessions e.g. girls football in the sports hall. Both have had limited success. After school, we are struggling to attract cohorts of KS3 girls to our clubs. This is a major focus for next year as we fail to accept that “girls just aren’t interested”.

What are the biggest things I’ve learnt?

  1. Funding exists – You just need to know where to look for it. Managing a budget for the first time is daunting, and I found myself constantly panicking that I was spending too much money. As the year has gone on, I have discovered it’s possible to access other pots of money if you are savvy enough to look. We asked for boxercise training and equipment to be paid for through the PP budget, justifying it would benefit a very particular cohort of students. Along with lockers to store kit for disadvantaged students, we were granted around £3000 from this pot. We asked for sports kits to be paid for through the uniform budget. Staff PE kit to be paid for through staff development, with a view to getting it paid for through the tendered contract with our uniform provider. We have saught out small grants from Sport England and Living Sport to fund our cycling initiative.
  2. Asking staff to do things at different times of the week garners different results. I quickly discovered that my staff were much more receptive to my requests on days when their teaching was lighter. Now, I delay delivery of emails or discussions in the office until Wednesday morning, when most of my team have 1-2 non contacts. A simple management tip that has had wonderful results!
  3. Modelling behaviour is one of the most effective forms of leadership. This one took me a bit of getting used to – the knowledge that this is now my team and I set the tone for everything we do. If I asked staff to carry through a routine, I need to make sure I do it myself. I tried to be the first one to take on a load of washing when our kitroom was in place. Try to be the first one to turn up for my lunchtime club. The first one to offer to buy milk. I don’t think I have mastered this yet, but I am aware of its power in creating a winning culture.
  4. Biscuits and cakes go a long way. Staff well-being is extremely important, and small snacks do help staff get through a long week sometimes. However, considering staff well-being is more than this. I’ve tried to pay attention to each of my team’s trigger points regarding stress levels. I minimise email communication out of hours. Don’t hold meetings for the sake of it. For the first time, I am in charge of a team and that has led me to have to consider staff well-being much more than ever before. Recently, when interviewing for new members of our team, I had a realisation that staff in my department are happy and that isn’t a given at every school. I hope I have taken steps that have contributed to that.

If you’ve made it to this point, sorry for how bloated this blog has become! Hopefully you can take one small nugget out of my experience to improve your own, whether a current head of PE or not.

Above all, this year has made me realise that leading a PE faculty has always been my dream. It may have taken me a bit longer to get there than I would’ve liked, and I may have veered off course along the way, but this is exactly the job I want to be doing. I hope that to be the case for many years to come.