TREE+Principal+PE

Being inclusive means adapting and modifying teaching practices and activities to ensure that every participant - regardless of age, gender, ability level, disability and cultural background has the opportunity to participate and achieve their full potential. The onus is genus as educators (more specifically, PE teachers) to create an environment for all students with vary abilities to achieve their potential, whilst promoting a positive, physically active healthy lifestyle.  The ** TREE principle ** can be used as a practical tool to help teachers to adapt and modify activities to encourage greater inclusion and allow all participants to improve their skill level and enjoyment. Below are some examples of how the TREE principle can be applied to modify activities. ** General ** ** Teaching/coaching style ** ** Rules ** ** Equipment ** ** Environment ** ** EXAMPLE ** – John has a hearing impairment which limits his ability to hear verbal instructions. In this scenario, you may consider the following modifications.
 * ** T ** – teaching/coaching style
 * ** R ** – rules and regulations
 * ** E ** – equipment
 * ** E ** – environment
 * Be prepared to be adaptive, creative, and flexible with both teaching style and content.
 * Communicate with the student and or their family/carers about their ability prior to class.
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Focus on ability ie what the athlete can or has the potential to do.
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Don’t be afraid to modify activity to better suit participant durign the activity
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Vary communication techniques, i.e. use both verbal (eg simple, brief and clear) and visual (eg whiteboard, demonstrations) cues
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Provide appropriate skill progressions and sequence learning tasks, i.e. complex skills should be broken down to one step at a time.
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Modify the number of participants in the activity/skill (i.e. smaller group activities)
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Everyone has to touch the ball before the team can score (i.e. number of passes)
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Use a different size/shaped ball for activities (i.e. round ball), if this makes it easier
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Use bibs to distinguish teams and team members
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Modify the playing area, i.e. smaller area = greater involvement
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Play on different surfaces i.e. indoors.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** T ** – teaching/coaching style (eg, use whiteboard and demonstrations to explain activity)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** R ** – rules and regulations (eg, raise a bib, as visual cue, when whistle is blown)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** E ** – equipment (eg, use bibs to clearly distinguish teams and team members)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** E ** – environment (eg, restrict size of playing area to reduce distance from coach)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Swimming Australia & Swimming for People with Disablity(2010) Australian Sports Commision & Sports Connect, Retrieved from www. Swimming.org.au