The Albion Foundation and the Premier League Primary Stars programme uses the appeal of the Premier League and professional football clubs to inspire active lifestyles.
Miss Mendoza, a newly qualified year three teacher at King George V Primary School in West Bromwich has worked alongside Foundation youth engagement coach Jordan Hall throughout the programme to create collaborative, high-quality PE lessons at the school.
The lesson and Miss Mendoza’s personal development have been largely attributed by the commitment to the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) process, helping both parties understand the areas in which they can excel.
“We took a pre-questionnaire from Miss Mendoza,” Hall started. “It was found that she felt she had a lack of experience in teaching PE.
“She felt underconfident standing there and delivering a PE lesson, organising the lesson to last an entire hour. Working with Miss Mendoza, we assessed her first, delivering on her own without any input from the staff.
“We then made sure that there was a lot of verbal feedback given as well as written feedback. We set her some targets to try and aim towards throughout the CPD process.
“We found that she felt a lot more confident delivering PE lessons, understanding the actual objective of the PE lesson and being able to use the knowledge that she’s learnt. She can deliver a lesson to the highest standard and make sure the students hit their objective.”
Mendoza has felt the benefits of the programme and believes that Hall’s holistic approach towards both teacher and pupil goes a long way to achieving the various goals they have set.
“It’s great that we have our coach helping us out as teachers with our CPD,” Mendoza said. “Him answering all of our questions has boosted our confidence whilst modelling what we need to do with those activities during those PE.
“The most difficult part is coming up with what we need to do and how it links to the learning objectives and how to hit those.
“The children have been excited for PE and it’s having that structure encourages all of them to take part. All of them are really encouraged to try their best, there’s the motivation to win the star of the week.
“There’s been a huge increase in the want to exercise and the want to work in a team. It’s been great to see.”
“The CPD programme when we first joined the school was actually for six weeks of the summer one term,” Hall added. “We’ve completed that cycle and now the CPD process will start again for the summer two term.
“It’s not just a cycle, we’re making sure it’s an ongoing process and we’ll continue to assess Miss Mendoza on her areas for development ahead of the summer two term. We’ll make sure it’s a fun process and it’ll continue to make sure she is at the maximum capacity to teach PE moving forwards.”
For more details on our Teacher CPD offer, please contact Glenn Short Primary Schools Partnerships Manager on glenn.short@albionfoundation.co.uk.