60 new specialist primary school PE teachers to boot School Sports
AN extra 60 new specialist primary
school PE teachers will be trained up in the North West; after an international
rugby star and a Great Britain Water Polo player were among the 1st wave of
recruits.
Hannah Rudman, 24, who has competed around the world in water polo championships
and John Gillam, a former Ireland international rugby league player, have
already got jobs in the classroom under the Government scheme.
40 of the next wave of recruits will be trained by the Ashton On Mersey Teaching
School Alliance with a further 15 at Liverpool John Moores University. 4 will
complete the programme at Holy Rosary Primary School, in Sefton.
Across England, 220 primary PE specialists
have been recruited in 2 years; and Children and Families Minister Edward
Timpson has announced a near doubling of the programme.
Nationally, 200 new specialist primary PE teachers will be recruited under the
scheme in 2015 to 2016.
Minister for Children and Families Edward
Timpson said:- "We've already recruited more than 200 specialist primary
PE teachers to bespoke training courses; but we want to go much further.
Specialist PE teachers are vital to help really embed a sporting culture in
schools; and get all children into healthy habits. Our £450million PE and Sport
Premium has enabled headteachers to deliver more and better quality sport. Now
we want to ensure more schools across the country can benefit from top class
games teachers."
The trainees will be the third wave of teachers recruited under the programme
launched after the Olympics to improve primary school sport.
The latest course for 199 new recruits will be delivered by 11 providers; up
from 3 a year ago.
Water polo star Hannah Rudman was 1 of the 1st recruits on the scheme.
The Year 5 teacher at Victoria Park Junior School, in Stretford, Greater
Manchester, competed for Britain in Hungary, Portugal, Canada and Italy. She
said:- "The specialist PE teacher training course appealed to me because
of its PE focus and its practical approach to learning and development.
The course was intense in the way it was jam packed with school placements,
training days, university lectures and assignments. I did this course after
getting involved with swim teaching and coaching young people gymnastics."
John Gillam, a former Oldham Roughyeds and Ireland rugby league player, now
teaches Year 5 at Moorlands School in Trafford, Greater Manchester, after
signing up for the scheme. He said:- "I was excited to be a part of
the new concept of becoming a PE specialist primary school teacher. Ashton on
Mersey gave a life changing experience, which included giving me vast amounts of
knowledge, confidence and the ability to become a highly skilled specialist when
entering my teaching career."
Trainees spend ½ their time studying PE and Sport; although they are not restricted to only teaching PE. They also undergo training in the core subjects; English, maths and science. They will be trained to support their colleagues to develop their skills and improve quality of PE. On top of this, the government is investing £450million in primary school PE over 3 years; and research has shown this has led to children doing more and better sport. A typical primary school with 250 pupils is receiving around £9,000 per year of ring fenced funding over 3 years to spend on improving sport..
