Professional Inquiry Project Fall 2020

Carolyn McKee

Sport and Connection: The Importance and Implementation of Group Exercise and Team Sport
in Middle Schools

My primary goal with my Professional Inquiry Project is to focus on a need that the students at
my school have, and then create a resource that can be used to fill that gap of knowledge. I have
always known, since I first learned of this project, that I wanted to create something that could be
used by teachers who felt unprepared or lacked the time, knowledge, whatever it may be, to help
support them in times when they are unsure of how to move forward. I found the subject of my
PIP within the first few days of my second practicum, and am using that information to direct me
in creating my project.

One of the first days that I was at my placement school, I was asked (in jest) by the head physical
education teacher to teach a unit on rugby, and was told that while the school did have a rugby
unit, the unit could use further development in skills and game knowledge. Later on, I learned
that the school did not have the resources necessary to implement such a unit within the physical
education year plan, specifically, enough rugby balls for a full class. As I became more familiar
with the school, I learned that few teachers were familiar with rugby, and were looking for ways
to improve the unit they already had in place. I also knew, even before my practicum began, that
the high school this middle school feeds into has an excellent rugby program, one that
consistently wins the south zone championship, and performs well at provincials. It quickly
became clear to me that there was and is a need at my placement school for a rugby program that
teachers who may be unfamiliar with the sport can implement, and one that will provide a solid
foundation of rugby knowledge for the students.

While this information was gathered early on in my time at the school, the onset of the COVID-
19 pandemic created another aspect that I will focus on during my project. A key aspect of
health, both physical and mental, is participating in forms of group activity and exercise. The
health regulations surrounding returning to school in the fall suggests that this will most likely be
impossible, for the sake of preventing and reducing cases within the school community. I, having
played sports all my life, and rugby during my university career, know that sharing experiences
and struggling together has the potential to create strong bonds between individuals. However,
due to the coronavirus, it is unlikely that team sports within public schools will be permitted to
occur. Acknowledging that, I plan on implementing within my project primary research in the
form of surveys wherein I find information regarding students’ opinions toward team sports, if
they participate, and the effects they have felt with loss of team sports.

The question that my profession inquiry project will center on is: What resources, activities, and
assessments are most beneficial when creating and implementing a unit to teach the
fundamental skills of rugby as well as the basic principles of health and fitness to 11-14 year
old students? 

In order to fully complete all required aspects of a PIP, I will be conducting some research to
support the importance of including new and popular forms of sport into PE curriculum. I will
use information from academic journals that will support the position of the importance of group
fitness and team sports, and will include this in the website where I will have all of the PIP
information available. In addition, I will create and implement surveys that will be given to
various gym classes, focused on finding the current perspective that students’ have on the
importance of team and group sports, regarding the current global pandemic. I will then code the
information from those surveys and include those statistics and notes on the website as well.

A key aspect of this unit is to ensure that the school will have the resources available to teach
this unit. The school already has whistles, pylons, pinnies, and gym space, but the essential
component to teaching and playing rugby is having rugby balls for the students. I plan on
contacting a local sports shop to inquire about a quote for 20-30 rugby balls. I will then enlist a
local business (or two) to support the school and purchase these balls to show their support for
the development of physical education and the sport of rugby. This will require creating a script,
finding potential businesses, calling those businesses, and then, once I have found a sponsor,
going through the necessary sponsor protocol that the school has in place.

There are a few moving parts to ensure that this unit plan is fully developed to allow future
teachers to use it with ease and confidence. Within the unit plan I will include an explanation of
the basic rules of rugby, as well as resources and film teachers can use to educate themselves
about the game, as well as scripted explanations that the teachers can use themselves within their
lessons. I will include complete lesson plans, wherein the focus will be the rules of the game,
positions, skills, as well as brief history and context of the game. I will include games for the
students and thorough descriptions of those games. There will be some team building exercises
integrated in the unit to help create connections, however small, between members of the class.
Although this is gym class and not a set team, team building is a key aspect that will be
experienced in many areas, and can and should not be reduced to only physical activities. The
final form of assessment will be the observed effort of attempt at learning the taught skills, a quiz
on the knowledge of the game, and a response to watching film of a rugby game.

Upon the completion of the unit, I will give a copy of the unit plan to the team of PE teachers at
my placement school for them to implement it in the future, as well as creating a website online
that will have all of the online resources listed (film clips, websites, etc). The website will also
include my findings from the survey I will conduct with students regarding the importance of
having an opportunity to engage in team sports, especially considering that they may not be able
to in the fall. This website will be available for any teacher searching for a fully developed rugby
unit to use.

My goal for this project is not only to create a resource that can be used for students and teachers
in the future, but also to emphasize the importance of creating a team bond and positive
connections with each other, an aspect of socialization that many students have suffered from a
lack of during the last few months of the pandemic. Creating this resource will provide an
opportunity for students to engage with each other in a positive, team focused manner, learn
relevant skills and information, and provide a resource that will directly benefit teachers by
having a completely prepared and developed unit plan to teach to their own students.