Middle School Physical Education
Fostering a lifelong love for fitness and physical activity in students is often a guiding principle at all levels of Physical Education. Past just loving it, teachers hope to instill a variety of skills that students can confidently use to stay healthy and active for the rest of their lives.
The same principles apply at the middle school level specifically, but with its own unique challenges. For Roxanne Bush, now in her 23rd year of teaching, she is well aware of what it takes to teach PE to middle school students.
“Students at this level crave choice and different options. As teachers, we need to help foster that with various activities, units, and opportunities throughout the year. And on top of that, we are tasked with teaching certain components of health and wellness.”
In her 13th year at Glenwood Middle School in Illinois, Roxanne strives for variety but always keeps one eye on the crucial component of overall fitness.
“No matter what the unit, we always work in fitness. It is important that our kids stay active, even if we are covering a health unit or whatever it may be.”
With over 750 students at this 7th and 8th grade middle school, Roxanne and her colleagues always have their work cut out for them!
Growing Interest In Fitness
As the team of middle school PE teachers work together to serve their students, they keep an eye on what they could do to develop and improve as a department. When Roxanne found out the high school had been using PLT4M as an educational fitness program for a few years, she wondered if it could also be used at the middle school level.
One way she saw early glimpses of its potential was through the football team coming down to the middle school after school. (See how Glenwood Football uses PLT4M from a previous case study.)
“The football program would come to the middle school and work with some of the boys and teach them the foundations of fitness and strength and conditioning. We started to ask ourselves, ‘why aren’t we doing this with all our students during PE?'”
With interest in setting the middle school students up with a strong foundation, she went to the high school to observe and see PLT4M in action during the PE classes. Roxanne saw a variety of students, not just athletes, all working to develop the basic components of fitness and strength and conditioning. After her observations, she knew that this could be beneficial to start with the middle school students. (See how Glenwood High School PE uses PLT4M from a previous case study.)
“We were really gaining some momentum in getting PLT4M set up at the middle school, but then Covid came. We hit a roadblock.”
As the school did it’s best to keep students active and engaged across all subjects, bringing something new into the school like PLT4M for PE didn’t seem feasible.
New School Year, New Chance
After weathering the spring and final quarter of school before summer, the middle school had a chance to regroup and thoroughly plan for the fall.
Even though students would be returning in a hybrid model, many of the units and activities they typically had done in the past were no longer options. The PE department, still hoping to make fitness a priority, knew that PLT4M could still be on the table given the in-school and at-home learning options.
With the district weighing its options and the clear need for online resources, Roxanne had a new chance at getting PLT4M started.
With the support of administrators and colleagues who had seen its success at the high school level, Glenwood Middle School got approved to launch and start PLT4M.
With new technology such as Canvas being added to students’ plates and half of the class being in person while the other half was remote, Glenwood needed to be strategic in rolling out the new technology into PE.