Quality physical education and tandem teaching in slovak active schools

Physical inactivity is today big problem with significant related health, economic and social consequences. To eliminate crises in well-being, education and equality, sedentary lifestyle and physical inactivity UNESCO during MINEPS VII, held in 2023 in Baku, Azerbaijan, adopted new global initiative "Fit for Life". This global project is focused on: - Driving Sustainable Development in and through Sport - Youth Accelerator Programme - Sport and Gender Equality Game Plan - Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls in Sport - Impact Investment in Sport - Using Data to Drive Impact - Sustainability of major Sport Events - Quality Physical Education Policies and Practices To achieve the goal of people to be more active due the recommendations of WHO from 2018 will require to implement a combination of effective policy actions organised around these strategic areas: creating an active society; creating active environments; creating active lives and creating active systems. These four strategic areas influence creating of important subsystem and it is "Active school". Active school is school giving many opportunities for children and youth to be physically active in school environment. Active school open opportunities to be active before school, during school day and after school. Quality Physical Education as a part of Active school is influenced by internal and external factors. One of factors is implementation of new approaches in physical education teaching. Tandem teaching is a form of management of the teaching process in which the process is conducted simultaneously by two educators, and which is implemented mainly in the first years of elementary school. In physical education, it can be the general class teacher in cooperation with PE teacher or coach. Both are actively involved in teaching and have clearly divided competences. Examples of tandem teaching in Slovakia are projects "Modules" and "Coaches in School", programs implemented in Slovak primary schools in the 1st, 2nd and 3th grades from the 2020/2021 school year. The programs, made up of varied movement activities from various sports, creates a relationship with movement activity and the student acquires basic movement habits. The programs are under the auspices of the Slovak government's representative for youth and sports and the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the SR. In the 2022/2023 school year 192 schools, 29 533 children, and 192 trained coaches were involved in the program "Coaches in School" and 595 schools, 2748 classes and 52 212 children in program "Modules". To better known effects of these programs it was realize also their scientific evaluation. We present basic results of pilot studies during first two years of implementation of project "Coaches in School" in praxis. The results of the pilot study carried out in the 2020/2021 school year show very positive responses from children. The participants of the study were 177 children (100 girls, 78 boys; 1st grade - 94, 2nd grade - 83) at three primary schools in Bratislava, where the project and tandem teaching was implemented during half a year. The results showed that at the end of the pilot evaluation, the number of children who ranked physical education among the three most popular school subjects increased, and the number of children who liked physical education more than at the beginning of the monitoring also increased. The interim results monitored during the 2021/2022 school year, when the project was already fully underway, showed how the coaches and classroom general teachers themselves perceive the project. The participants of the study in this case were 29 coaches and 136 general class teachers in the 1st grade of primary schools who were involved in the project. Almost 80% of the class teachers rated the project as excellent, 82% of them rated the teaching content prepared by the coaches as extremely attractive for children, and 81% of the teachers would welcome such a teaching model to continue. The coaches stated that 14% of female teachers were actively involved in teaching in every lesson and 73% in most lessons. The majority of both groups also stated that they perceived an improvement in children's physical literacy, while the coaches perceived it a little more intensively. Conclusion To increase quality physical education teaching in schools it is necessary to start implementing new approaches, especially in primary schools, where physical education is thought by general teachers. Tandem teaching is one of the ways how to manage teaching of physical education to highest quality and research and experiences show positive impact to children's attitudes to physical activity and its positive evaluation also by general class teachers and parents. The study is supported by VEGA Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the SR with number 1/0213/23 and title "Tandem Teaching of Physical and Sports Education in Primary School and its Impact to Motor, Cognitive and Emotional Development of Pupils".