After last week’s first lesson in Athletics, exploring the controlled pace needed for different distances, our learning objective this week was to develop fluency and co-ordination when running for speed.
We began with a quick warm up and stretches: the children working in pairs to share and support each other with stretches they knew. We then shared stretches as a class which might be useful for the muscles required for sprinting: hamstrings, quads etc.
Our first activity was for pupils to sprint the length of the playground counting the number of strides they are making. Taking big, consistent strides helps to create a running rhythm that allows the children to run faster. The larger the strides, the faster they can move. Each child repeated the sprint three times and tried to complete the length in less strides each time.
Once we had practised controlling the size of our strides, we got into groups of 4: one child being the runner, one the coach, one the timer and the other the race starter. Each child had several turns at doing each of the roles. The children learned that the technique behind sprinting included:
- Head facing forward.
- Elbows: bent at 90°. Hands moving from pocket to mouth.
- Body: upright and slightly forward.
- Knees: high knee lift.
- Feet: sprinting on the balls of feet
The lesson finished with the children being given the opportunity to apply their learning to relay races and we all enjoyed running faster than we had been running at the beginning of the lesson!
