BA (Hons) Physical Education

at Plymouth Marjon University

If you enjoy being physically active and you want to share your knowledge and enthusiasm with children and teenagers, you may be a perfect candidate for a career in PE teaching. 

The BA (Hons) Physical Education degree will enable you to develop the knowledge, skills and understanding to challenge outdated notions of physical education and thus play a part in creating the next generation of healthy and physically literate individuals. The developmental design of the programme allows you to base your career aspiration on experiences during the three year programme instead of committing to primary or secondary education at the start of their degree. 

In your second year, you will undertake a 100-hour placement in a school setting. You can choose to carry out your placement in either a primary school, a secondary school or a school focused on pupils with special needs (SEND). To help you clarify your career aspirations you can choose to split your placement experience between different school contexts, for example, primary school and secondary school. The programme is also designed to provide opportunities to explore working in Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND). 

Throughout the programme you will be engaging with pedagogy from both a theoretical and a practical perspective through delivering a diverse range of physical activities to children and young people in school settings. You will be working with pupils in every year of your degree through a range of experiential learning opportunities embedded within modules. 

You will engage with all six areas associated with a broad and balanced delivery of PE, alongside non-traditional diverse physical activities providing graduates with the capacity to challenge narrow approaches to PE that do not provide for all pupils’ needs. You will therefore take modules that are designed to encourage creative and innovative practice providing pupils with more meaningful/memorable learning experiences.

You will study in world-class sports facilities at the University including our sports science laboratory, climatic chamber, 25m swimming pool and 4G and astro-turf pitches.

In order to achieve Qualified Teaching Status (QTS), which you need to teach in most UK schools, you'll need to follow this degree with a postgraduate teaching qualification, such as PGCE PE, PGCE Primary or School Direct. This degree is a flexible route into teaching and the developmental design of the programme ensures that you are well placed to apply for a PGCE or School Direct programme in either the primary or secondary sectors to gain qualified teacher status (QTS).