Fundamental Movement Skills

Why focus on Fundamental Movement Skills?

FMS such as running, jumping, catching and overhand throwing are the foundational base upon which all other sports and movement skills are built.  Children who lack FMS competency are less likely to acquire complex and sports-specific movement skills in their growing years.  This can be a barrier to the pursuit and enjoyment of physical activity or sports among youths and adults.

Ten resources to improve FMS at your school

1. The Fundamental Movement Skills Planning Guide outlines when each fundamental movement skill should be introduced, consolidated and mastered for students.
2. The NSW Department of Education offer free online training for schools on FMS.  Search for 'Live Life Well @ School' on MyPL, or contact the Live Life Well @ School team at the NSW Department of Education.
3. Fundamental Movement Skills in Action is designed to support K-6 teachers to explicitly teach the 12 fundamental movement skills. The easy to print teaching cards include a warm up activity, ideas on how to teach the skill components and activities to practise the skill.
4. Independent schools can access support from a team of consultants at the Association of Independent Schools of NSW, including complimentary workshops, customised professional learning, self-paced online learning modules, courses, conferences and school-based projects.
5. The NSW Department of Education’s Physical Literacy Continuum K-10 is a tool to support quality teaching, learning, assessment and reporting practices in PDHPE, with a particular focus on physical education. 
6. The NSW Department of Education's Physical Literacy Continuum glossary helps to establish a consistent language across your school.
7. The NSW School Sports Unit provide a range of online, face-to-face and school-based workshops to support teaching of FMS.  Popular workhops include Delivering Engaging Sport & Physical Activity in K-2, Thinking While Moving in Maths, Thinking While Moving in English, and Foundation Gymnastics for Primary  Teachers.
8. Kindergarten to Year 6 PDHPE sample units and assessments support delivery and assessment of physical education as part of PDHPE.
9. The NSW PDHPE Curriculum Pinterest boards are used to curate and relevant resources to support various aspects of physical education, including using game concepts approaches, primary PDHPE, secondary PDHPE, strategies for physically active schools and physical literacy development.
10. The Playing For Life resources include activity cards containing a variety of games designed to develop the skills of a range of physical activities. The cards can be filtered and searched based on the stage of learning, the movement skill in focus or the category of game.

Ready to go?

Visit the NSW Department of Education website for more FMS resources or email the Population Health team to discuss how we can support FMS at your school.