STEP MODEL, ADAPTING SESSIONS AND THE SPORTS CREW'S CHALLENGE

STEP MODEL and Adapting Sessions

What is the STEP model and how did we use it with the Sports Crew?

In this blog we will be discussing how to differentiate physical activity sessions, for difficulty or engagement whilst also keeping you up-to-date with the current progression and activity of the Sports Crew project. As you know, the current objective of the Sports Crew is to embed competition into their lunchtime club. This week's blog will look at how their first week went as they lead their own bowling season.

Firstly, I would like to highlight what I discovered in this school visit. As the club was about to begin,  I notice the normal process of the club start, children from years 3,4 line up as they wait for the Sports Crew leaders to prepare the club and register them. As much as their ability to run the process of the club puts a smile on my face, I look over to see the leaders organise themselves into different roles (two to register, one to organise equipment). I think to myself, "where are the other three leaders " and I presume, maybe they are speaking to a teacher after their last lesson or other school responsibilities, I wasn't sure but I let the leaders do their responsibilities and I was amazed to learn that the leaders had done some 'tinkering' as they put it. 

The children had reorganised themselves into two separate groups on their day to be leaders, group one (3 Sports Crew members) would go straight outside to the playground the set up the club and register children into the club, while the other 3 Sports Crew members would go straight into the hall to have their lunch. After finishing their lunch they would make their way outside to swap with the children who had started the club outside, giving them the chance to go inside to eat and the children from other year groups are never waiting outside for the club to start. This put a smile on my face for two reasons. One, it's great to see children show this kind initiative and reason number two, the children felt confident enough with the club to put their idea in motion. The initiative didn't stop there, also found they had made boxes, a place to store children's lanyards containing their JCPE reward cards, in a safe and effective place. Which makes their jobs at the end of the club easier. Simply amazing to see this from the children but also from the Midday Assistants who have obviously supported the children from the get go!

The STEP Model

The STEP model is a process to help you differentiate your sessions. The acronym helps you to think about different parts of your session and how to increase/decrease difficulty. 

S - space

T - Task

E - Equipment

P - People

You can see above what each letter stands for, these are parts of your session you can think about changing to either increase or decrease difficulty of your session. Would increasing or decreasing the space in which the participants are working help change the session for the better? Maybe changing the task the participants are performing  may help the participants reach the learning outcomes they're trying to achieve? Could you possibly change the equipment they children are using or even introduce equipment to help? Finally there's people, could you adapt the participants in the session to help or challenge the participants? As usual, there will be more STEP resources included at the end of the blog if this has interested you.

Space - Where are the participants working, would an increase or decrease in the area where the task should be performed help or would change in the distances in which to travel change the difficulty of your session?

Task - What is it you are asking the participants to do? Can you change the demand, add or take away certain rules to modify the sessions difficulty.

Equipment - Would changing the size of the equipment challenge or simplify the session for the participants or would simply introducing different equipment into the session also modify the session for the better?

People - Can you change the people involved in the session, would this help other participants or themselves when doing this? Would the size of the teams intensify the difficulty, would smaller teams simplify the session? can they work with a partner or would working alone challenge your participants?

We've used the STEP model throughout the Sports Crew project to help train the leaders. We are now at the point of educating the leaders themselves in how to use the model to help them keep younger children interested in the games, not so much challenge the children like a teacher would do in a lesson. The Sports Crew leader's challenge from the start has been to keep children active and interested. Once they were introduced the the model the understood the importance of changing the games to help the participants succeed, so that the children don't get fed up and leave the game and look else where for entertainment during their lunch break. The leaders (as shown in the picture below) now lead their own games, in their brand new bowling season, but also watch the games and participants to see if they nee to change any part of the STEP model to keep participants playing. from what I've seen, the children have engaged with the challenge and also like the idea of authority, something which they've seen their teachers do in their own PE lessons. 

On behalf of the Sports Crew, myself and everyone else at JCPE. We thank you for your continued support, below you will find more resources on the STEP model and how this may be used and why this might used. 

JCPE Offer their own resource cards for a number of different activities for Primary School classes, the STEP model is used in these cards along with other models for a result in a more effective PE lessons. If you wish to enquire please email;

JoeCurran@JCPEprimary.co.uk

RESOURCES

https://www.sportdevelopment.org.uk/index.php/subjects/98-disability-sport-a-physical-activity/748-the-inclusion-spectrum (Inclusion and STEP)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQO-lyvBPrw (Sainsbury's Inclusive STEP tool) 

https://www.youthsporttrust.org/TOPPE (Resource cards for how to use STEP with different activities)