Welcome back to the 20 days of summer school physical education series! If you are just joining this series, stop right now and check out Summer School Physical Education: Day 1. What Works and What Doesn’t.

The post above details what I will be talking about day to day, and how it can help you improve your social distancing physical education classes in the fall. It also lays out my class size, class time frames and space I am able to use.

If you are currently teaching summer school physical education, please leave comments on what works for you! I love collaborating, so let me know what you’re up to.

Yesterday

So I needed a sub in day 9, and if you read that post you will see it was unexpected.

I did what every normal teacher would do…I made a detailed lesson plan and sent it off to the school to be given to the sub who is already a PE teacher.

All of the activities could have been self ran by the students, so all the sub needed to do was look at the times and say, “set up _______ and play, or grab _______ and begin”. Unfortunately, I found out today that my students were told to go to the other gym with the two other PE teachers and have a free for all.

Me being annoyed with the sub, I texted one of the other PE teachers to apologize and let him know my plans did not involve our classes mixing. He informed me that my sub got my plans at 9 am which is 1 hour and 15 minutes after class started. That means he still had 1 hour and 45 minutes left of the morning class and THE ENTIRE second class to follow the plans. He decided he would rather just let all of the kids mix up, and headed to the weight room with one of the PE teachers. They let the students travel to the field house or weight room, but you don’t need two teachers in one spot.

Then, I apologized to my class knowing it was out of their control, but a few students let me know that when the sub walked in and didn’t have plans, he asked the students what we normally do. My students being the amazing kids that they are named off a few things. The kids told me he didn’t listen to anything they said and took them downstairs to the other gym anyways. So even if he didn’t have a plan for a small fraction of the time, my students still informed him of what they should be doing.

The thing that frustrates me the most about this situation is that the sub IS A CERTIFIED PE TEACHER. Even if he had no plans (which he got) and my kids didn’t tell him exactly what they should be doing (which they did), he should have been able to figure out SOMETHING on his own. Instead he he put a ton of kids together with minimum supervision during a pandemic and then left half of them with someone who wasn’t their teacher who “blindly” watched them.

How This Affected Fun Fridays

The other two PE teachers that share a gym and I let our students pick what activities they want to do and in what designated location.

Today I should have been stationed outside, one in the weight room and one in the field house. Just like you read about in day 5, students are able to choose their activities for the day.

Since my sub decided to take my kids to the other class yesterday, and both PE teachers did not tell him and his class to leave, it completely messed up today’s plans.

The other classes have been playing badminton all class period, all week. That’s 15 hours of badminton per class block. Yesterday since my class apparently merged with them, it was just a random free day to the other teachers. Which means they are behind 3 hours of badminton….

So as I’m about to station myself outside, one of the teachers texts me telling me the OTHER PE teacher wants the kids to stay in and finish badminton. THEY HAVE BEEN PLAYING ALL CLASS ALL WEEK. Now if I’m being honest, the teacher that is stationed in the field house for fun Fridays does not like watching the kids, so I’m almost positive the reason he want’s to “finish” badminton is so the other PE teacher will be in the same room as him, and he can literally do nothing.

My kids were so bummed out AT FIRST, but I’m not going to argue with anyone and point fingers. I just made sure my kids had the best Friday, and I think in the future I will cut ties with the other two, and they can play week long units with their kids, while mine get to experience multiple activities and games daily. It’s things like this that give PE teachers a bad name. I’m not lazy when it comes to teaching, and I take my job seriously.

As class progressed my kids actually asked if we can cut ties with the other classes and keep to ourselves every Friday. Even though they have a few friends in the other classes, they really like our little team dynamic we have created. I really appreciated hearing that, because when I first found out we wouldn’t be merging I thought they would hate the day.

Now is not the time to be the “gym teacher that rolls the balls out to kids to do whatever they want”. It’s time to advocate for our content more than ever. I watch the PE Central Facebook page, and see specials teachers getting fired across the country. By no fault of their own. But the rest of us that are lucky enough to still have our job, it blows my mind that some would take that for granted and show admin that they would be fine without us.

So what Did my Classes Do?

Morning Class:

The morning kids have a health test once they leave my class today, so about 4 of them took 30 minutes to study. The other kids enjoyed a game of Lightning (basketball) each with their own ball, and RipStiks on the other side of the gym.

About 35 minutes into class, we played an indoor game of capture the flag. It was harder inside, but I always gauge their temperament to see if something is working or not, and they seemed to really enjoy the added level of difficulty from playing in the gym vs. the football field.

It also wasn’t as strenuous meaning they had plenty of opportunity to work on their breathing if needed. But since they weren’t running as far, this rarely happened.

At 9:10 we took out mats, and a volleyball (no kickballs) and played a game of Matball on the football field.

Find out how to play Matball HERE!

I kept score so kids could run freely with out arguing over who scored or not. Honestly it was so much more fun today staying in our own little group of 15 than merging with the other class. I have built a really great relationship with my kids, and I genuinly enjoy being interactive with them.

Once the game was over, we headed inside with about 20 minutes to spare before lunch. Everyone was pretty tapped out by this point, so I let them take their break and just chill out for the remainder of class. I had a few kids continue to study, others played games on their phones, and a few grouped up just to chit chat.

Afternoon Class:

With these guys, I decided to take them to the weight room for 30 minutes since a lot of them really enjoy being there. I did not have them write in their notebooks. Just enjoyed their workout without having to think about anything else.

Once we finished, we went to our gym to play a quick couple rounds of Reaction Ball, and then approximately 20 minutes of free time with the RipStiks, or basketballs.

The rest of the class block we spent outside on the football field playing Capture the Flag. It was my afternoon classes first time playing this game with me, since they don’t get through as many activities as the first class.

Watching them play this game for the first time was so much fun. Some of them haven’t played it in years. I love watching them strategize, and figure out ways to get around the defense. Normally I like jumping into a game, but today I sat back and just made sure everyone played fairly. Which they always do.

We took all of our stuff with us outside, so the students were able to go home right from the football field at 2:15. This meant we had extra outdoor time not having to worry about going in and grabbing all of our stuff. My favorite part of their class was watching them form a circle with about 10 minutes left to spare of class. The older students were giving the incoming freshman advice and what to look out for when they come to high school in the fall.

I asked if they were excited to come back or if they wanted to stay and most of them said they wanted to come to school. Most of the responses were that they didn’t learn anything through remote teaching. It was really amazing to hear how important their academics are to them. I was so happy, they took this time to cool down and allowed me to listen in on their thoughts and concerns about their personal school journeys.

Overall

Keep doing what you’re doing when it comes to advancing your PE program. Keep evolving with the ongoing pandemic and new guidelines. Keep reading my blog if you need inspiration or tips on what is working well for me. And keep advocating for our profession, by being the best PE teacher you can be to your students.

We are all going to have bad days, and things might not go as planned. But how are you going to give your students another great PE class if that happens? We teach for THEM.