PDST Professional Learning Community (PLC) Workshop

Junior Cycle Gymnastics

1st Oct 2015, 4.30 – 6.30 in BCS

Presented by: Emer Gallagher, Marian Carey & Ivan O’Mahony

Aims /Objectives:

  1. To promote the effective teaching of gymnastics through an integrated delivery that combines the Thematic and skills based approaches
  2. To emphasise the importance of safe practice with specific attention to :

Environment

Apparatus

Class organisation

Skill progressions

Supporting techniques

  1. To consider the junior cycle programme of study and to promote ideas for lessons based on the themes and skills of travelling, statics and flight and rotation
  2. To consider the promotion of planning, performing and evaluating in gymnastics lessons
  3. To demonstrate progression from floor to low apparatus to full apparatus in the different themes and skills
  4. To focus on the factors that promote quality in gymnastic performance including body tension, extension, clarity, precision and fluency
  5. To promote an understanding of compositional variety in gymnastic sequences including changes in speed, direction and level
  6. To encourage the development of a delivery technique using a variety of teaching approaches and a focus upon differentiation within lessons

Workshop/Course Outline

  • Individual floorwork – Travel
  • Individual & pairs floorwork – Balances and travel
  • Individual & group floorwork & apparatus – Flight
  • Trampette work & vaulting
  • Group sequences on large apparatus

Workshop Content

Intro

Introduction to course content

Themes & ideas for each theme on skills & types of movement

JCPEguidelines – HRA integration

Teaching styles & resources

1. Travelling (20mins)

Warm Up – Commands, Travelling Variations on floor: feet – walk, run, hop, skip, twist, jump, leap, step, step combinations; feet & hands; dynamic stretches mirroring/matching

Animals – Galloping dog, crab walk, elephant walk, donkey, snail drag, HUNTER

Mat work – explore first (feet only,hands & feet,other parts), rolls, cartwheels – reciprocal cards

Individual sequence – Starting position, 3 different types o f travelling; feet, handsfeet, rolls, pair work- leapfrog

Log (pencil) rolls, judo rolls, teddy bear rolls,shoulder roll

Level, Speed & direction

PERFORMANCE QUALITY & SKILLS - Control, tension, extension

Introduce benches – explore travel along, on off, over & around benches

Bench between 3 or 4 - Adapt sequence to include bench & mats

Plan, Perform & Evaluate sequences

(Give feedback to partner on skills and sequences using skill cards and criteria from teacher for quality of performance and sequence composition)

SPECIFIC GYMNASTIC SKILLS – Forward roll, backward roll, log roll, teddy roll, shoulder roll, judo roll, cat-spring.

2. Individual balances (20mins)

Warm Up – Follow the leader, A chase B, body parts on floor, points & patches,

Stuck in the mud – v-sit if caught, lower feet into pencil roll to be free, jump overroll.

Dynamic body stretching sequence in 2’s – matching & mirroring.

SPECIFIC GYMNASTICS SKILLS – front, side & back support, shoulder stand, V-sit, Arabesque, one foot stand, Y balance, Froggy balance, tripod (head on floor with knees on elbow) Explore point balances 1,2,3,4,5. Matching and mirroring balances explore from worksheet (#4).

Moving into & out of balances – starts & finishes, linking balances

Sequence – Matching & mirroring plus timing – 3 balances & different ways of travelling in between – Pairs & feedback from another pair

PERFORMANCE QUALITY & SKILLS – tension, extension, control, fluency

COMPOSITION – changes in speedsheet 12, level, direction

Add benches & box tops and adapt sequence to apparatus

Plan, perform & evaluate

3. Partner balances (20mins)

Warm up – Side to side synchronisation & canon. Arch tag, running in pairs LINKED ARMS, when caught makes an arch (counter tension balance)

Fundamental movement skills, shoulder stand with partner, lifting one foot. Pullbalance, squat with one hand, stand up switch,

Counter balance/counter tension, pushpull, link 3 together (task cards 31, 32)

Video clip from mens GB pair

Specific partner balances –body tension development, task cards 22, 23, 24

Shoulder stand partner balance (26B), use press up position partner holding legs

Knee support, feet support, shoulder support, back support

Balance to forward roll for pupils that are ready (task card 27), Points & Patches

Counter balance/counter tension

Sequence- Unison & Canon, Over & Under – starting position into individualbalance, travel into partner balance with support and finally into a counter/tension balance

PERFORMANCE QUALITY & SKILLS - Body tension & extension, control & fluency, clarity of body shape, muscular endurance

Plan, Perform & evaluate

4. Group balances (use as progression from partner balances depending on the ability of your group, or as a 2nd block of gymnastics)

Use task cards to explore group balances ¾, choose cards that play to the strength of your group and challenge the group without being unobtainable.

Plan a sequence with starting position, 2 gymnastic floorwork skills, 2 balances to be performed in 2’s and 2 balances to be performed as a whole group, link movements and have a finishing position

Performances to be watched by an audience wither whole group or one group.

Give feedback, 2 positives & one thing the group can work on to improve its next performance

5. Flight – Jumping & landing (20mins)

Warm up – Co-ordination star jumps, jumping & landing toe- heel. Which group can do it the quietest? Pogo & frog

Estimation & Measurement, half turn broad jump, one foot →two feet

Backward broad jump, two feet →two feet, task card 48, 49

Benches – along, over, on& off benches: feet only, hands & feet, other body parts- shapes, landings

Introduce springboard/trampette work – takeoffs/shapes/landings

Sequence – Pairs / 4’s using benches, springboards & mats:

Direction, level, pathway, speed

5. Vaulting (20mins)

Warm up – stuck in the mud, leap frog or face vault (52) to free each other

Introduce partner & group vaulting (4’s), Through Vault 1, Task card 53

Adapt the through vault to a bench, base supports straddle bench

Leap-frog with Support 2, Task card 57, progress off benches, over 2 backs (58)

Flight – Strong approaches, take off from springboard, land on knees/feet, and shape off

Jumps shapes – pencil (narrow), Star (wide), Pike, straddle, tuck (curled)

Progressions & differentiationstraddle through, cat spring vault, Squat through, squat & half turn, straddle flight

Neck spring, headspring off box, headspring with support

6. Group Sequence

Group sequence to include flight, travel, twisting & turning, & balances

Use of music?

Synchronisation & canon

Group relationships

Performance quality – tension, extension, control, co-operation, fluency

Compositional elements – level, speed, direction, pathways

Evaluate others/self-evaluation

Video Performances - Pupils watch back their performance. Final performance should include all elements from previous week to build up to rich task. Invite class teachers, Principal & parents to watch. Class can make invites to hand out in advance. Job of the class reps.

Ballincollig C.S. 2015