Italy Secondaria di secondo grado – classe 1ª Physical education and sport

1. Movement, sport and health

Self-perception and motor capacities · Sport, rules and fair play · Health, wellbeing, safety · Nature and technology

• Motor Skills – A motor skill is a movement we learn to do well, with a clear aim, such as running, catching, writing or a cartwheel. Gross skills use big muscle groups (running, jumping); fine skills use small muscles and need precision (writing, a snooker shot). Skills come in three families: locomotor (moving from place to place), manipulative (controlling an object) and stability (balance, holding a position). Skills can also be open (changing surroundings, like a football pass) or closed (fixed surroundings, like a free throw), and simple or complex. Every movement follows a loop: our senses take in information, the brain decides, muscles act, and feedback tells us how it went. Reaction time is the gap between seeing and starting to move. We learn in three stages: cognitive (understanding, many errors), associative (practising, fewer errors) and autonomous (automatic, smooth). Motor abilities such as speed, strength, endurance, coordination, balance, agility and flexibility are the base on which skills are built; practice, good feedback and creativity improve them.
• Fair Play in Sport – Fair play means playing by the rules and in the spirit of the game: respecting opponents, officials, teammates and yourself. Rules set the field, time, scoring and what is not allowed, so everyone has an equal and safe chance. A game has roles: players, a captain, referees or umpires, coaches and spectators, each with duties. Sportsmanship includes shaking hands, helping a hurt opponent and accepting decisions; cheating, deliberate fouls, doping and match-fixing break fair play and are punished with cards, bans or worse. The Olympic movement links sport with values: excellence, friendship and respect (and the Paralympic values of courage, determination, inspiration and equality). Organising a fair event means choosing a format (knockout or round-robin), making a schedule, sharing roles and planning for safety.
• Physical Fitness – Physical fitness is the body's ability to do daily work, play and sport with energy to spare. It has five health-related components (heart-lung endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, body composition) and six skill-related ones (speed, agility, power, balance, coordination, reaction time). We improve it with a planned programme using FITT (frequency, intensity, time, type) and training principles like overload, progression, specificity, rest and reversibility.
• Outdoor Activities: Orienteering, Climbing and Staying Safe – Outdoor and adventurous activities, like orienteering, hiking, climbing and water sports, ask you to move in changing natural places. You need skills (reading a map, using a compass, climbing technique), good decisions (route choice, knowing your limits) and safety habits (planning, equipment, teamwork). You also protect nature by leaving no trace.