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Subject Framework

Physical education can provide all students with enjoyable and worthwhile learning opportunities where they develop the movement skills to participate and perform in a variety of physical activities competently, confidently, and safely.  

In the junior cycle short course students learn to appreciate the importance of regular health-enhancing physical activity and to make informed choices about how to include physical activity as part of a healthy lifestyle. The course builds on learning in physical education in primary school and lays the foundations for their learning in senior cycle in physical education.  

Junior cycle PE is structured around four strands:  

1. Physical activity for health and well-being 
2. Games  
3. Individual and Team challenges 
4. Dance and gymnastics.  

Each strand of this PE short course includes different kinds of psychomotor learning experiences and provides opportunities for students to receive developmental feedback as they learn. Students will gather evidence of what they have learned in that strand through ongoing assessment during and/or the end of each strand.  

In third year, when they have completed the four strands, students select evidence of their learning in one strand to submit for their classroom-based assessment.