Junior High School Semester 1

MISS LIGHTFOOT’S
NEWSLETTER
Physical Education

Teaching
Philosophy
To develop students
physical, mental and
emotional health and
well-being, as well as
understanding the
importance of these
concepts and why we
should value them.
Tracking the growth and
improvement of their
achievements through
multiple means to Hello everyone,
celebrate the differences
My name is Kianna Lightfoot, I am very excited to be your
we all have is an essential
children’s physical education teacher this year! I am a strong
piece of physical
advocate for physical education in schooling because of the many
education. We will be
benefits it provides for students not only physically, but mentally,
practicing skills to assist
emotionally and spiritually as well. I am so thrilled to have the
students in everyday life
that will encourage them opportunity to share my passion and hope to help your children
to live an active lifestyle find their passion as well. This newsletter will give you an idea of
outside of their how our year will pan out. I will include my philosophy statement
schooling experience. As as well as assessment practices, teaching styles that will be
well as recognizing the implemented throughout the year and some of the activities we
importance of nutrition will be exploring.
and how this affects all
aspects of our health and
well-being, will be
significant to the
physical education
journey.
Junior High School
Inclusion
In order to create a positive and
inclusive classroom I would
employ team building strategies
throughout the year. These
strategies have a high success
rate in many sporting aspects,
but also business corporations
use these strategies to ensure
cohesion among group members.
Having a common goal for the
group of students to work
towards would help to create a
collective identity. These team
building strategies would allow
the students to become closer
right away which will help in
creating that safe environment
where everyone feels okay to be
themselves. An example of a very
simple team building activity
would be the human knot. This
activity shows me a lot about the
students as well (who is a leader,
who would rather let others lead,
the students who might not get
along, etc.). Getting to know
how the students interact with
one another will help me make
decisions on how to modify my
plans for the year to best set up
the students for success.
Semester 1
Teaching Styles
Although there are plenty of useful teaching styles for
physical education, I will be emphasizing 5 throughout this
course. First of all, I will use direct instruction. I chose this
type of teaching style because when I introduce to the
students an activity or sport that they are not familiar with,
I could be looking for more specific results. By giving direct
instruction I can make these results clear to the students,
which will give them a better chance at success. This type of
teaching style allows for a breakdown of material that is
being presented with many opportunities for feedback.
Secondly, I will incorporate the personalized system for
instruction (PSI). I value this type of instruction because it
benefits the students individual strengths. They are more
likely to find success at earlier stages as they are progressing
at their own pace. This type of instruction will build
confidence in the students as they are able to find success
more often. PSI provides 3x the feedback of any other
model and this model requires students to self-assess. Self-
assessment is important toward the students understanding
themselves and so I believe this model provides a lot of
benefit for the students. Thirdly, I will include the Sports
Education model because I appreciate that this not only
teaches sport specific skills, but teaches the students about
the culture of sport and everything that is involved within
that sport. This type of teaching style takes into account all
students, the students who really love sports/physical
activity and the students who may not. By including this
type of model, I hope to reach all students within the overall
experience of sports especially because the fitness and skill
portion is just one of many aspects in sports. The fourth
type of instruction I would include is Teaching Games for
Understanding. This type of instruction allows a
modification of the any type of game which can allow for a
variety of skills to be focused on. This type of instruction
would allow me to take into account the games/sports that
the students really enjoy and create new enjoyments while
working on a number of different skills. Lastly, I would
include cooperative learning as it embraces one of the
general learning outcomes in the curriculum. This type of
teaching style has the students grouped into teams where
everyone is held accountable and there are many underlying
lessons that would be learned throughout. With different
roles within the groups I believe I can engage all students in
this type of setting. Using an array of teaching styles will
hopefully celebrate all of the strengths of the students and
help to encourage a lifelong joy for physical activity.
 Junior High School Semester 1

Classroom Management
In order of creating an environment where students have the best opportunity to learn and grow, there will
be set expectations on the first day of class. My number one value is respect; respect your teachers, your
classmates and yourself. I will ask the students what they believe this looks like and we will make the
expectations together, because every class is completely different. This activity should touch on majority of
the areas that should be discussed. I will have prompt questions in case the students don’t cover all of the
necessary points that should be made. For example, I will prompt a question of what respect would look like
while they are in the locker rooms or areas I may not be around. Including the students in the creation of
rules and expectations will decrease the likelihood of the rules being broken. Although, in case the rules that
we have created are at any time broken or not followed, depending on the severity there will be a verbal
warning first, and second, that student will be required to complete an assignment and have this signed by
parents marking the reason for them not participating in class that day. Students who cannot participate due
to injury will be required a written note from the doctor/parent and will be expected to complete the same
assignment while they are sitting out. The assignment will have to do with what the students who are
participating are learning that day. In addition to those rules/expectations I will create a rotation of set up
and clean up responsibilities with the attendance sheet of the students. The students who are required to set
up will be notified the class prior and will have to change into their gym wear quite fast. This will be a small
portion of their participation mark. This will allow for more time to dive into the given activity/sport we are
focusing on. Safety is the most important aspect to consider in a physical education class and in order to
create a safe environment these rules and procedures

Dance/Gymnastics
The basis of foundational skills relies heavily
on agility, balance, coordination and speed.
Gymnastics and dance are two types of activities
that allow students to practice these aspects.
Gymnastics and dance allow for a great
exploration of the human body which encourages
us to understand ourselves that much more.
While gymnastics explores more about more of a
structured approach, dance allows expression of
one’s self in somewhat of an unstructured way.
Throughout the class I hope to engage the
students in the benefits of participating within
these two forms. I believe that gymnastics and
dance allow for a multi-sport approach to their
skills which will be useful in all other sporting
activities we will be investigating throughout the
year. These activities will encourage outside
exploration of participation as their skills will be
able to grow further with some background in
gymnastics and dance.
Junior High School
Nutrition
A nutrition activity the students
will be participating in will
hopefully further the student’s
understandings of the importance
of their health and how much food
intake has an impact on their well-
being. One assignment we will
focus on during our nutrition unit
will be researching a ‘fad’ diet.
There are many advertisements
that exclaim healthy benefits when
following these types of diets, but
it’s very important to research all
ends to these diets that are so
increasingly reaching younger and
younger groups of individuals.
After researching the students will
then suggest if this diet would be
appropriate to a certain athlete’s
profile. This type of activity can be
modified depending on the grade,
but touches on general outcome B
and D. I enjoy that this project
emphasizes the negative effects of
fad diets that will hopefully
encourage students to be aware of
how society encourages these diets
without being educated on the
choices they are making.
Semester 1
Assessment
During our Physical Education journey this year I
will use a variety of assessment tools to provide
the students, parents and myself with the
knowledge of the abilities that each student has.
The most frequent assessment strategy I will use
throughout the course of this year will be
formative assessment. Formative assessment has
no official grade attached to it, the positive side to
this will be to inform without feeling the pressure
to perform. I want the students to feel
comfortable to make mistakes and I believe
formative assessment takes away from the
negative connotation that failure has attached to
it. We are all human and in order to grow mistakes
must be made. I will use self-assessment to
encourage the students to understand where they
are at in that specific area. Self-assessment
reinforces students to improve in their
understanding of self-awareness. I will include the
students in the assessment by asking them the
areas of physical fitness that the students are
knowledgeable, interested or would like to
become more knowledgeable on and adapt my
planning according to their interests. The students
will receive a final grade based off of the four
general learning outcomes that are outlined in the
Alberta program of studies as well as a grade for
participation. The four general outcomes include:
activity, benefits health, cooperation and do it
daily for life. The students will respond to
prompted questions via Edublogs, having to do
with the outcomes that I am assessing. Videos and
responses will be stored on this blog to track the
student’s performance. I’m hoping this will
encourage a reflective oriented assessment that
will support the development of skills and what is
and what is not effective.
Junior High School Semester 1

Contact Information
E-mail: kianna.lightfoot@uleth.ca

Room #: TBA

Office hours: TBA