Physical Education

About the subject

Students explore their own physical capacities and analyse performance, health, and lifestyle issues. Students develop skills in communication, investigation, and the ability to apply knowledge to practical situations.

Course content

Stage 2 Physical Education consists of two key areas of study and related key concepts:

• Practical Skills and Applications
• Principles and Issues

Practical Skills and Applications

Students complete three practicals that are balanced across a range of individual, fitness, team, racket, aquatic, and outdoor activities and that cater for the different skills, interests of the students.

Principles and Issues (consists of the following three topics)

• Exercise Physiology and Physical Activity
• The Acquisition of Skills and the Biomechanics of Movement
• Issues Analysis

Exercise Physiology and Physical Activity

• Key Concept 1: The sources of energy affecting physical performance
• Key Concept 2: The effects of training and evaluation on physical performance
• Key Concept 3: The specific physiological factors affecting performance

The Acquisition of Skills and the Biomechanics of Movement

• Key Concept 1: Skill acquisition
• Key Concept 2: Specific factors affecting learning
• Key Concept 3: The effects of psychology of learning on the performance of physical skills
• Key Concept 4: The ways in which biomechanics improve skilled performance

Issues Analysis

Students analyse and interpret their findings from investigating a chosen issue. Topics include, for example:

• commercialism
• culture/race relations
• equity
• gender
• media
• professionalism
• sport in the Australian context
• the Paralympics
• the science of drugs
• technology

Assessment

Students demonstrate evidence of their learning through the following assessment types:

Information on the External Assessment

Students undertake a 2-hour external examination, which is divided into two parts:

• Part 1: Short-answer Questions
• Part 2: Extended-response Questions

The examination covers the content of the ‘Exercise Physiology and Physical Activity’ and ‘The Acquisition of Skills and the Biomechanics of Movement’ topics.

The examination will be graded by external assessors with reference to the performance standards.

Performance Standards

The Physical Education Subject Outline includes performance standards, which describe five levels of achievement that are reported with the grades A to E at the student’s completion of the subject. The school-based assessments and the external assessment will be graded with reference to the performance standards.