Background and Guidelines

BACKGROUND

The PE Central Cooperative Skills Challenge© has been developed as a way to encourage youngsters to practice a number of the movements suggested in Moving into the Future: National Standards for Physical Education that was developed by the Shape America and published in 1995. The Challenge is intended to be used by teachers in ways that are developmentally appropriate and as a device to motivate youngsters to practice and improve some of their physical skills rather than as a way to recognize highly skilled youngsters. It is NOT intended as a way to assign a grade in physical education. Our hope is that the PE Central Cooperative Skills Challenge© will be a positive experience for youngsters and something they look forward to.

"The Challenge was a wonderful experience for my classes. For some students who had trouble accomplishing things, this was their time to shine. All students were really excited about the challenges and practiced every recess that they could. When other students, not involved in the challenge, saw the students practicing at recesses they wanted to do it too."

GUIDELINES

Provide youngsters MANY opportunities to meet each of the challenges. It is not intended to be a one-time test but rather a challenge that youngsters can try many times for the duration of the Challenge.
Verify successful completion of each of the six challenges by using our Challenge Tracking Sheet.
The Challenge is intended to be optional, NOT mandatory. If some youngsters are uncomfortable, or do not want to try the challenges, we encourage teachers not to force them to do so.
We encourage you to modify or change the Challenge tasks to meet the needs of all your children, including those with special needs. For example, youngsters in wheel chairs may be able to perform the Hula Hoop task by maneuvering the hula hoop around their arms instead of their waists. Click here for more ideas on adaptations of the challenges for youngsters with disabilities.
We encourage teachers to "teach to the test" by providing youngsters with appropriate "at home" practice tasks, cues, and feedback as often as possible.
Some of the challenges require children to work with a partner or in a group of three. It is possible for students to successfully complete these challenges more than once in order to help other students to achieve those challenges.
Ideally each of the challenges will be completed in small groups or individually, but not with an entire class of students watching one or two children at a time while the rest of the class waits for their turn.
The challenges may be administered before or after school or during recess. Classroom teachers may be interested in helping their children pass the various challenges and verifying their successful completion. Teachers offering a challenge evening with parents can count those attempts towards the passing of each challenge task as well.
We do not recommend that a substantial portion of physical education class time be devoted to administering the challenges.