The idea of a virtual sports day had come from other schools and PE teachers online. This is just one example of what another PE teacher was setting up:
We focused on the fact that we wanted the challenges to be very accessible to students, easy to understand and undertake with little or no equipment. We also needed the set up to be clear to students and staff to input their results.
By using our VLE (Frog), it kept the students focus on one platform and hopefully would make it easy to promote and engage participation in the events. I wanted to make the site as engaging and interactive as possible.
The 2020 Virtual Sports Day website for Whalley Range 11-18 High School
Within a meeting with PE staff we decided on 8 challenges that could be completed with little or no equipment and easily measured. This is to the extent that students may not have a ball or a way to measure at home. Therefore, our throwing activities involve a folded pair of socks and all measurements were counted or timed.
Our PE staff then went away and filmed themselves completing their assigned challenge, making the technique clear and giving a short demonstration. These were then developed in iMovie so they had standardised starts and finishes, and instructions were clear during the demonstration through captions.
eStream – a media platform for Education
Examples of challenges on our Virtual Sports Day website
To ensure that these videos would stream smoothly they were uploaded to our eStream platform. Next to each video I created a Frog form for students to enter their results. Due to it being on Frog, very little information was needed as they were already logged into the platform, which provided some of the required information automatically. The form also made it clear what information was required for the result.
To introduce the students and staff to the information I created an additional video that set the scene for why the Sports Day was needed, with memories from Sports Day 2019 and a Loom video that gave the students instructions on what they were required to do.
I foresee that there may be some issues with some students not completing the results properly without cheating! Some other examples that I have seen have asked for evidence to be uploaded as part of the task but I didn’t want this to limit students from taking part. When the results come in they will be screened for excessive results and we will have to lay some trust on our students.
I hope that the site will encourage students not only to take part, but also to stay active when they are practising and trying to get their best result.
