HPE organises “PE in Community” to raise health awareness among primary school students

As part of the foundational training for future physical education teachers, the Department of Health and Physical Education (HPE) is committed to arranging opportunities for our students to apply their knowledge learnt from classes to promote physical education in schools in Hong Kong. Assisted by the department and under their teacher’s instructions, four second-year students from HPE organised the “PE in Community” activity on 13 December 2022 at Tai Po Waterfront Park. During the half-day activity, 16 students from Po Leung Kuk Tin Ka Ping Millennium Primary School played sports games they designed with the help of our students.

Competitive elements were incorporated in the activities; the 16 primary school students were divided into four small groups, each led by a HPE student. Each small group designed a sports game to play on the final activity day. On that day, each group was assigned a specific route in the park. Primary school students needed to follow their assigned routes to find the designated locations to complete the activity, as demonstrated by an iPad. The games were designed in such a way that players needed to use daily items such as water bottles, tissues, and plastic bags to complete them. They were then given marks according to how well they completed the games.

Before the final outdoor activity day, Leung Chi-ho, Jason Li Cheuk-hin, Cheung Yan-chun and Chen Chun-ting, all second-year students taking the Bachelor of Education (Honours) (Physical Education) programme, went to the primary school to teach its students through five separate lessons how to use different iPad applications to design sports games, while using Google Earth to plan routes. They also taught primary students how to use Padlet to house all the maps, photos, videos and other materials related to an activity.

“The ‘PE in Community’ activity not only raised awareness about the importance of health and physical exercise among the participating primary school students, it also provided a chance for them to learn about communication and cooperation. As they were required to follow the assigned route in the waterfront park when completing all the tasks, students also learnt more about their own community,” said Mr Roy Chan Ching-yat, Senior Lecturer II from HPE who supervised the design and implementation of the activity.

Two sharing sessions were delivered at the Education Bureau on 6 January and 17 February, where in-service PE teachers were invited to attend. “They learnt about how to design and implement an outdoor physical education activity like ‘PE in Community’ and how to use information technologies such as iPad, Google Earth and Padlet as educational tools to increase the effectiveness of learning in physical education,” Mr Chan said.