Europe gets moved!
If there is an area where Hungarians shall not miss out on the opportunity when competing for the financial resources granted by the European Union, it is the area of sports. And the Hungarian School Sport Federation indeed did not miss it: in the 2014-2020 programming period, the organisation won with two projects. Thanks to this success, a more health-conscious next generation can be raised applying Hungarian concepts in the future, now at a European level. Also, a school sport day moving the students of whole Europe is coming!
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Cooper-test, burpees, rope climbing, throwing medicine balls. No need to go on with the list, generations can feel again the smell of the school gym immediately, the footstool in their hands, and so on. However, in 2012 there was a change of approach in the methodology of PE teaching – beyond introducing daily physical education, the change also happened in the contents.
SHA.P.E recommendations to reform physical education
In the elaboration of the new PE concept, which has also been incorporated into the new National Curriculum, HSSF already had quite an important role, and the federation used its PE expertise and experience when preparing the project proposal. The management realized that HSSF is in a winner position for more than one reason in the field of sport, which field has been recently included among the competences of European Union: ’Since a long time, Hungary is at the forefront in working on the content of physical education comprehensively. Also making mandatory PE contents part of the national curriculum is still not a generally used solution in Europe. PE is also compulsory on a daily basis in every class since the school year of 2015. The National Student Fitness Test elaborated by HSSF is also unique, because there are very few fitness test systems in the world that are purely health-centred. In many countries, general teachers and pedagogues teach PE, and in some places, the separate PE teacher profession does not even exist on its own, not to mention such in-service trainings which have been organized to more than 8000 PE teacher in Hungary’ explains László Molnár professional director at the head office of the organization.
‘Ambitiously, we figured that we shall compare the regulation background of PE from other EU countries, and based on our experiences, we could prepare EU-level recommendations for the methodology of physical education. That was the initial idea behind the SHA P.E project.
László Molnár professional director: ‘Ambitiously, we figured that we shall compare the regulation of PE from other EU countries, and based on our experiences, we could prepare EU-level recommendations for the methodology of physical education
The success of SHA P.E, which has been supported with 297.120 by the European Union, is a classic case for being in the right time at the right place. Brussels pays attention to sports on EU level only since the Treaty of Lisbon – said the professional director. From this point, sports belong to the EU’s competences as independent policy, and Brussels approaches it comprehensively: it includes competitive sports, leisure time activity, school sport and physical education as well. Since then, the first EU recommendations were born about on promoting sports physical activity and physical education, and how to develop PE contents in order to avoid the future where the majority of the 30-year old EU citizens will be obese adults consuming plastic foods and suffering from civilization diseases.
A serious and more professional work has started around the turning of 2012-2013 in order to foster the concept of health-enhancing physical activity. For the programming period of 2014-2020, the tender calls have already been opened for the topic as part of the Erasmus+ programme.
It was that moment when Hungarians joined the game, and indeed they scored a touchdown. ’We have activated our evolving international network, involved four partners (a German, Dutch, a Lithuanian and a Greek partner institute), and undertook to get familiar with each other’s core curricula, principles, practices, to make the consequences, and to prepare recommendations for the European framework of quality physical education. The goal is that possibly in each member state, students shall be able to lead a health-conscious, future-oriented lifestyle when leaving the compulsory education system’ summarized László Molnár professional director.
The Hungarian School Sport Day
HSSF does not stop at making recommendations: another good practice of the organisation has been granted with financial support to be able take it to the European level. The Hungarian School Sport Day is organized now since 10 years, moving thousands of children, and in 2015, the school sport day is simultaneously organized in Poland and in Bulgaria thanks to the 238.675 euro provided by the European Union.
The goal is that possibly in each member state, students shall be able to lead a health-conscious, future-oriented lifestyle when leaving the compulsory education system’
The experiences of the school sport day will be summarized in a methodological toolkit, to make the European School Sport Days blossoming from the Hungarian practice even more about health-consciousness and quality physical activity, involving as many countries as possible.
source: http://nyeromagyarok.eu/index.php?id=diaksport
