Want something different in your PE lessons at school?
Has your teacher ever talked about your brain in P.E. lessons and how it can help you?
Or, more specifically, has your teacher talked to you about sport psychology?
Did you see some of the Tokyo Olympics? There was so much sport psychology in action and lots of athletes, such as swimmer Adam Peaty commented on how their mindset helped bring out their best performances to help them win medals.
Psychology is the study of the mind and sport psychology is about understanding performance, the mental processes and wellbeing of people in sports settings. Lots of athletes work with sport psychologists to get the best out of themselves and we think that these skills are brilliant for all young people to start working on from an early age.
We have developed a way of bringing sport psychology into primary schools to help you achieve your best in P.E. and give you psychological skills to help you in life, just like the top Olympic athletes. Take a look at this School Sport Psychology video which gives an example of psychology in action. It’s a 4-minute cartoon video that teachers can show at the start of a P.E. lesson.
There are 20 videos in total and different psychological challenges in each one. The aim is to build skills to help you work on your individual mindset, helping you to ‘think better, be better’. Lots of pupils have watched the videos and learnt about sport psychology – here is what some of them said:
“I think that I now definitely believe in myself more”, Owen aged 7
“It helps you feel more positive”, Sian aged 11
Let your school know that they can get involved by bringing psychology to your PE lessons by looking at www.schoolsportpsychology.co.uk.
Tell your P.E. teachers and give School Sport Psychology a try. It can help you not just in sport, but in life too!
Written by:
Helen Davis, teacher and sport psychologist who works with athletes from many different sports – even a gold medallist from the Tokyo Olympics!
Liz Barker, former Blue Peter presenter who has interviewed lots of sporting stars, like David Beckham and Lewis Hamilton.
Liz worked on the BBC’s longest running children’s television show, Blue Peter. It has a new sports badge designed by surfer, skateboarder and Olympic medallist Sky Brown. Any young person who gets active and tries a new sport for the first time can win one of these badges. Follow this link to find out more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/joinin/about-blue-peter-badges
