Students and staff in PE have access to a whole host of equipment and technology to improve learning and engage students in lessons. In fact, they probably use the biggest variety of technology of any department in the school.
To help students improve their physical fitness and strength, they have access to high-quality training equipment and have supervised gym sessions with teaching staff. These can be used for general fitness and stamina or to work on a specific set of muscles to improve perfomance in a certain sport.
Staff often take lessons outside or to external venues so have iPods to take registers, and use 3G enabled iPads to access medical and personal details of students when off-site.
One of the main ways in which they use technology is for monitoring and analysing performance. iPads and Flipcams allow students to record and track their own progress for further improvement - this is especially useful for those taking units in trampolining and gymnastics.
Head of PE, Mr Ripley, said, “They use cameras on a number of devices to record their routines and analyse them before showing staff.
“This helps them to check their posture and execution of moves, helping them perfect their routines by way of self-evaluation.
"In the sports hall, we record students playing badminton and tennis matches and then slow the videos down and play them frame by frame. This is great for allowing them to assess their technique and identify areas to improve on."
The department has also found social media to be a great way of keeping in touch with students and parents. They have an active Twitter account with a strong following and use it to post messages about out-of-school training, match times and results.
Mr Ripley said, "We've really raised the profile of our department using Twitter. When we're out at matches, we can let the school and parents know how things are going in real time with match tweets and results.
"Students value it as a way of finding out about training and last-minute fixture changes and parents use it to follow their children's progress."