Training the trainers

“We know that teachers are a way to communicate with large numbers of young children,” says David Deister, who leads the project for the DLV, “so we want to enable and motivate teachers to introduce athletics in an interesting and effective way during PE lessons and thereby reach a maximum number of kids.”

The programme, which was launched by the DLV in 2003 with support from Nike and health insurance company DAK, gets the teachers themselves active and taking part in the various running, jumping and throwing activities they will be teaching their pupils. According to Deister, “this has the double effect of improving their competence and increasing their enthusiasm for what they are doing.”

The DLV has offered the programme to the education ministries of all the federal German states. When they take up the offer, the ministries nominate a group of experienced PE teachers to attend a two-day training seminar run by DLV experts. The purpose of the seminar is prepare the participants to be trainers themselves and they emerge equipped to deliver further seminars to other interested teachers.

All seminar participants receive a DLV developed two-volume seminar brochure – “Run and Sprint” and “Jump and Throw”.

So far, 12 out of the16 federal states have taken up the offer. In addition, the Austrian Athletic Association has become interested and a DLV representative conducted a training seminar for them.

The programme has been particularly successful in the federal state of Bavaria, where 32 teachers were trained in the first-round seminar. Within three months this group went on to train some 1,000 Bavarian teachers.

“If each of these teaches only four classes of about 25 pupils, 100,000 Bavarian children or more will be reached by Athletics at School every year,” says Deister, “it is a classic example of a multiplier system.”

“We think that if athletics is taught in an interesting and enthusiastic way students’ interest will be stronger. And we hope this interest reaches a climax in 2009 when the World Championships in Athletics take place in our own country.”

Deister believes that in the future, the Athletics at School programme model could be used in other areas, such as cooperation with universities. Similarly, trainee teachers could be brought into contact with the concept through a closer co-operation with teachers’ training centres.