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Physical Education

Year 12 - Elective

Length of Course: Full Year
Department: Health and Physical Education
Head of Department: Miss Anna Rossetto
Year Available: 2025

Physical Education enables students to:

  • engage in practical activities that integrate theoretical understanding with practical application in all types and intensities of movement

  • develop the knowledge and skills to critically evaluate their participation and learning in, through and about movement

  • engage in practical activities to determine and analyse how the body systems work together to produce and refine movement

  • critically evaluate trends in participation in physical activity, sport and exercise from a psychosocial perspective

  • analyse movement skills from a biophysical perspective and apply relevant training principles and methods to improve performance in physical activity at an individual, club and elite level.

Curriculum focus

Unit 3: Movement skills and energy for physical activity, sport and exercise

This unit introduces students to principles used to analyse human movement from a biophysical perspective. Students use a variety of tools and coaching techniques to analyse movement skills and apply biomechanical and skill-acquisition principles to improve and refine movement in physical activity, sport and exercise. They use practical activities to demonstrate how correctly applying these principles can lead to improved performance outcomes.

Students consider the cardiovascular, respiratory and muscular systems and the roles of each in supplying oxygen and energy to the working muscles. They investigate the characteristics and interplay of the 3 energy systems for performance during physical activity, sport and exercise. Students explore the causes of fatigue and consider different strategies used to postpone fatigue and promote recovery.

Unit 4: Training to improve performance

In this unit, students’ participation and involvement in physical activity will form the foundations of understanding how to improve performance from a physiological perspective. Students analyse movement skills and fitness requirements and apply relevant training principles and methods to improve performance at various levels (individual, club and elite).

Improvements in performance, in particular fitness, depend on the ability of the individual and/or coach to gain, apply and evaluate knowledge and understanding of training. Students assess fitness and use collected data to justify the selection of fitness tests based on the physiological requirements of an activity, including muscles used, energy systems and fitness components. Students then consider all physiological data, training principles and methods to design a training program. The effectiveness of programs is evaluated according to the needs of the individual and chronic adaptations to training.

Assessment

In the study of VCE Physical Education students’ level of achievement will be determined by:

  • Unit 3 School-assessed Coursework: 25 per cent
  • Unit 4 School-assessed Coursework: 25 per cent
  • End-of-year examination: 50 per cent.

There are seven School-assessed Coursework tasks on the following topics:

  • Skill acquisition and biomechanical principles 
  • Energy systems and acute responses to exercise
  • Energy system interplay, fatigue and recovery
  • Activity analysis and fitness tests
  • Reflective folio of training sessions
  • Training program design
  • Chronic adaptations to training 

Links

For more detailed information, please click on the link/s below:

Key Resource

 The following items are booklisted for this subject and exact details will be provided once subject selections have occurred:
  • Textbook
  • Edrolo Study Guide