Teachers of all subjects can contribute to promote sport at school
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How to Use Sport as a Means to Acquire Life Skills, Including Strategies of Communication with Families
A Toolkit for Teacher of All Subjects
7. Relations with the world of work
Sport, not only at school but nevertheless coordinated by the school, is a great vehicle to train transferable skills that will be helpful for students in the world of work, not only the outgoing ones but also all those experiences that students have at school (internships, alternation school/work): being flexible, reacting to a change in plans, managing conflicts, orientating themselves.
The Europe 2020 strategy has been put in place to deal with the situation of economic and employment crisis. The three priorities of the project are:
• Smart growth
• Sustainable growth
• Inclusive growth
The targets are representative of the three priorities and relate to employment, research and innovation, climate change and energy, education and the fight against poverty.
To achieve the purpose young people must be equipped with the necessary skills.
Participation in grassroots sport can develop attitudes and positive social values, skills and individual abilities such as:
- Ability to think critically
- Spirit of initiative
- Ability to work in teams and solve problems.
Employers give great value to transferable skills but often claim that new employees lack such skills.
Learning Objective
Planning a learning path of a sports activity involving not only physical education teachers but also external experts and teachers from other subjects.
Preparing reports and questionnaires referring to specific activities (such as hiking trails through the hills).
Studying possible setbacks and hitches to the planned activities. During the physical education classes, after having answered the questionnaires, some students could be asked to test their skills when it comes to overcoming the setbacks created by the organizers.
These activities will stimulate students' problem-solving skills. Students will learn to orientate themselves in difficulties, work in a team, design appropriate solutions and so on.
Online Resources
- Team workAn example of life skills used in an effective team work activity.
- Sport and HealthLink available only in Italian
- Via Francigena in TuscanyTwo Italian pages about experiences connecting health and sport at school. Link available only in Italian
- Community Employment serviceChecklist of transferable skills you can take with you from one situation to another, from one job to another.