Introducing you to School Sport Psychology
PE is ideally placed to support children’s all-round development. As well as developing physical skills, PE teaches children intellectual skills, helps them navigate complex social situations and nurtures their emotional development.
The wide-ranging benefits of physical activity are frequently used to justify PE’s place in the curriculum, yet PE is capable of bringing psychological outcomes to the classroom as it has the unique potential to support whole-child development.
Why PE?
- PE encourages interaction and collaboration. This can be through self-confidence, empathy and understanding by encouraging children to work together and support each other.
- PE encourages children to be creative. This can be through solving problems and planning for the future, whilst also learning to communicate and manage risk and conflict.
- PE encourages cognitive development. This can be through decision-making, problem solving and organising.
- PE encourages social awareness. This can be through communication, sharing and understanding.
- PE fosters emotional development. This can be through helping children develop confidence self-awareness and motivation.
The School Sport Psychology video series has 5 modules
Series | Content | |
|---|---|---|
Series A
| A1 Knowing Yourself
| |
A2 Get good at Noticing | ||
A3 Unique Strengths in me | ||
A4 Strengths: How to use them | ||
Series B | B1 Setting Goals
| |
B2 Self-Improvement | ||
B3 Effort | ||
B4 Motivation | ||
Series C | C1 What are emotions? | |
C2 Dealing with difficult emotions
| ||
C3 Set backs/failures | ||
Series D | C4 Bouncing back/resilience
| |
D1 Communication | ||
D2 Working in a group
| ||
D3 Solving problems | ||
D4 Managing conflict
| ||
Series E | E1 Self management | |
E2 Responsibility | ||
E3 Self compassion | ||
E4 Be your own person |
Why Sport Psychology for young people?
Integrating Psychological Skills Training into the sport environment can help young athletes reach their full potential, promote positive self-esteem, perceive competition as challenging not threatening, develop resilience, enjoy their sport experience, stay involved in sport, and nurture personal growth in other aspects of life (e.g. school; Burton, 1991; Tremayne & Newbery, 2005)
Sport has the capability to create greater self-confidence and transform how individuals view themselves outside of sport (Chinkov & Holt, 2016).
7-11 year old’s realise that differences in ability can explain unequal performance but still believe more effort leads to higher ability, so we must reinforce effort, improvement and learning as keys to success.
