SSPEL Newsletter: Research and Scholarly Activities

The long-awaited book by Gareth Long and Harvey Grout has appeared:
Improving Teaching and Learning in Physical Education, with chapters written by 3 Marjon colleagues -- Ian Luke, Gill Golder and Stuart Taylor
Here are the details
ISBN: 0335234062 –
By: Harvey Grout, Gareth Long
Edition: 01 –
Pub Date: 01-JUL-09

‘This book is essential reading for all trainee and practising secondary school PE teachers’.

Details

http://www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk/html/0335234062.html

Dr Saul Bloxham has won £15,000 funding for a Back Pain Clinic

The low back pain physical activity programme is a 6-week group programme designed to educate / help patients with low back pain to exercise safely. It is delivered in conjunction with Mount Gould Hospital Plymouth and is part of a broader low back pain service ran by GPs, osteopaths and Behavioural Cognitive Therapists (we’re the exercise referral bit)

The project has run as a pilot for 2 years and following its effectiveness in getting people back to work & reduced patients' use of NHS services, has been funded to the tune of 15k to expand for 2009/10

Students assist in the delivery of the programme which enables us to create both a social group amongst the patients and the necessary individual ‘break out’ one-to-one sessions with the students. Next year we intend to run 6 cohorts which will total 90 patients.

Erica Eaton-Quinn, Gareth Jones, Jamie Oxley and Dianer Smith all attended the Sports Law Conference this morning at the beautiful new office complex of Foot Anstey. The event was well worth attending, not least because of the glorious view of the harbour, bathed in sunshine, from the 6th floor of Salt Quay House in Sutton Harbour. After we enjoyed the view and our coffee, the conference was conducted apace and included topics such as:

The World Anti-Doping (WADA) Code (New 2009 code and its implications) Whereabouts and Therapeutic Use Exemptions (Myadams, sanctions) Securing and Managing Sponsorships (Protection of brand, name, intellectual property rights etc.) Dealing with on-field and off-field incidents (risk in sport, how to manage the risk) Child Protection Issues (awareness, responsibilities, guidelines of good practice) Tax and Tips for the Sporting Sector (Community Amateur Sports Clubs, Charitable Sports Clubs, Gift Aid)

I found all the presentations extremely interesting and informative and contained much detailed information which, I am sure, would be useful to some of your lectures. The Conference pack, containing all the slides and handouts is in my office if anyone would like to borrow it and have a read through some of the info.

Diane Smith

On 27th May, I attended a conference run by the Church Colleges and Universities Association in London. I gave a short presentation, based on a paper written by myself and Paul Grosch, on a famous episode in Marjon history, when the founding Principals (Derwent Coleridge of St Mark's and James Kay-Shuttleworth of St John's) campaigned against the notorious Revised Code of 1862.

That Code abolished general funding for schools and offered payment by results instead -- grants determined by basic exam results and attendance. The Code also effectively demolished the case for skilled and well-trained teachers of the kind produced by our Colleges -- semi-trained teachers could teach to the test and keep a register.

Our Principals mounted a stirring defence of their own admirably high-quality practice, quoting some useful statistics about the benefits of the unreformed syustem and doubting the efficacy of the new policy. They also talked about a much wider vision for education - not a mere commodity but about character, in Coleridges's terms.

Paul Grosch and I used this episode as a case-study of what happens when fundamentally religious visions bump into vulgar and reductionist calculationsd of crude cost and benefit. Any links with contemporary debates was intended.

I thoroughly enjoyed the conference. Although I would not describe myself as a Christian in the sense of having any personal faith commitments, I was impressed by the ways in which Anglican theology is able to mount a superb critique of modern capoitalism generally, and rationalised political practice specifically. I have some of the papers if anyone is keen.

There were some big hitters at the Conference: Revd Profs and Pro VCs were tripping over each other in the queue for coffee. None of them had the slightest hint of pomposity or elitism though!

Dave Harris