4 Health and Movement Science Mistakes That Are Quietly Costing Your Kids

We need to re-think the way we are teaching Health and Movement Science. I have already heard from teachers whose elite athletes and strong writers have dropped the course. We can fix this.

Mistake 1: Teaching content without bringing it to life

There is a lot of content in this syllabus. I know. I have written our resources for two and a half years.

But we cannot keep getting kids to regurgitate information. Death by content does not build understanding and it does not build writers.

Think of your sixty-minute period like a clock.

• Hook them in for about five minutes. A quote, a clip, some music, rearrange the furniture. Ignite curiosity before the textbook comes out.
• Teach explicitly for about twenty minutes. Clear, deliberate, foundational.
• Apply the learning for about twenty-five minutes. Matching cards, scenarios, an article from ESSA or the Australian Sports Commission. This is the big chunk.
• Check for understanding for about five minutes. Exit tickets, mini whiteboards, a gallery walk. Do not assume they have it. Make them show you.
  

And weave in writing every single lesson. Not just before trials. One sentence will do. Three minutes. That is how we lift their writing over time.

Mistake 2: Death by PowerPoint

If you are clicking through slides and calling it a lesson, I have to be honest with you. That is not teaching.

Slides are a brilliant visual. Put them up to support a student who is struggling. But they are not there to teach your class for you. Neither are the videos.

This is not about care. You care deeply. It is about pressure and reverting to the quick option when you are buried. Step back. Slow down. Good teaching takes time, and you do not have to build every lesson from scratch to make it happen.

Mistake 3: Examples that are too generic

The examples in the syllabus are a guide. “The includings” are the essential teaching.
The “examples” are optional ideas you can build on, swap out and add to.

So do not let your examples stay airy fairy. Make them SUAVE.

• Specific to the question
• Unique, so it stands out to a marker
• Applied to the context
• Varied, not the same example every time
• Explicit, never vague

Take recovery strategies. Do not just say cold plunging. Give them variety. Sauna, sleep, cold water immersion, active recovery. When students use examples like this, their responses lift automatically.

Mistake 4: Not knowing the difference between the key words

This is the one hurting kids most.

Students can define the verbs. Many cannot apply them. Many do not know the difference between explain and examine, or analyse and evaluate, or discuss.

And here is my epiphany. A lot of teachers do not know the difference either. That is not a criticism. Most of us have never done HSC marking.

Saying you are an ALARM school is not the same as teaching the kids what each verb actually demands. There is a progression. You do not explain in an evaluate question. Get the Glossary of Key Words right and you stop watching kids leave three marks on the table, over and over, across a whole paper. That is the difference between a Band 4 and a 5, or a 5 and a 6.

If you want support, we are one message away. Our HMS Membership has units of work, trial exams, scaffolds, exemplars and revision built for exactly this, at thelearnnet.com/hms.

And the HMS Summit is on the 30th and 31st of July. Tickets are still available and they will sell out, at thelearnnet.com/summit.

Listen to the full episode at thelearnnet.com/177.