Unit 1 — Foundations of Physical Education and Well-being

Every activity in this unit follows the same four-part plan. Learning the plan is the first skill, because it is what keeps you safe and makes each period useful.

• Warm-up (about 8-10 minutes). Light jogging, skipping, arm circles and dynamic stretches such as walking lunges. The warm-up slowly raises your heart rate, sends more blood to the muscles, makes muscles and joints more supple and gets the mind ready. Cold muscles tear more easily, so never jump straight into sprinting or jumping.
• Main activity. The game, relay or drill that teaches the idea of the day.
• Cool-down (about 5 minutes). Slow jogging that becomes walking, then static stretches held for 15-30 seconds, and deep breathing. This brings the heart rate down gradually and reduces stiffness the next day.
• Circle time. The class sits in a circle and talks about what happened: which technique worked, how a role felt, what science was at work. This is where play turns into learning.

Dynamic and static stretching are different. Dynamic stretches are moving ones (leg swings, arm rotations) and suit the warm-up. Static stretches are held still and suit the cool-down.

Safety habits for every period:

• Wear comfortable clothes and proper sports shoes with laces tied; remove watches, sharp hair clips and chains.
• Check the ground for stones, glass, wet patches or holes before you play.
• Drink water before and after activity, especially in Indian summers. Play in shade or in the cooler part of the day when it is very hot.
• Keep an arm's distance from others in drills and follow the teacher's whistle at once.
• Stop and tell the teacher if you feel dizziness, chest pain, unusual breathlessness or sharp pain. Pain is a signal, not a challenge.
• Tell the teacher in advance about asthma, a recent injury or any health condition.

Physical education aims at well-being: a healthy body, a calm and confident mind, good relationships and a sense of joy. So in circle time you will also talk about feelings, fairness and teamwork, not only scores.

Every body has a centre of gravity: the point where its weight can be thought to act. For a person standing straight it lies roughly near the navel, a little inside the body. You stay balanced as long as this point is above your base of support, the area enclosed by the parts touching the ground. Three rules follow, and every sport uses them.

• A wider base gives more stability. A wrestler stands with feet apart; a person on one foot wobbles.
• A lower centre of gravity gives more stability. That is why a kabaddi defender crouches.
• When the centre of gravity moves outside the base, you start to fall, unless you move the base, for example by taking a step.

In the Horse Vault Race, pairs of similar height and weight race to a finish line by taking turns to vault over each other. One partner becomes the ‘horse’: knees and hands on the ground or a firm squat on all fours, back flat, head tucked so the chin points to the chest. The other places both hands on the horse's back, pushes down, and swings the legs apart and over. Then the roles swap, again and again, until the pair crosses the line.

The horse is stable because it has four points of support and a low centre of gravity. The jumper is briefly balanced on the hands, so the push must go straight down through the middle of the horse's back, not to one side, or both of you will topple.

Safety first:

• Pair up with someone of similar size; never vault over a much smaller partner.
• The horse keeps the head tucked in and stays still until the jumper has landed.
• Hands go flat on the upper back, never on the neck or head.
• Land on both feet with bent knees, then move forward to make space.
• Play on grass or a soft, level surface. Start slowly; speed comes later.

In circle time, compare techniques. Was a quick, light push better than a slow heavy one? Who kept the best balance as the horse? Sideways vaults can be added once everyone is confident.

A mass drill is a set of exercises performed by the whole class together, in time with a count. In the Progressive Mass Drill, students stand in rows with an arm's distance between them. A demonstrator stands on a raised platform facing the class, the teacher calls the counts from one to eight, and everyone copies each movement exactly on the count. ‘Progressive’ means the drill becomes harder step by step: first free-hand movements, then with objects such as a stick, light dumbbells, a ball, a hoop, a rope or a ribbon, and the beat can come from a drum instead of the voice.

A typical eight-count movement: on 1 raise the arms sideways, on 2 raise them overhead, on 3 lower to the side, on 4 return to the start; counts 5-8 repeat with a step to the right. Moving together needs rhythm (keeping time) and coordination (body parts moving in the right order).

The drill is also a chance to name the major muscles you feel working:

Notice that muscles work in pairs: when the biceps shortens to bend the elbow, the triceps relaxes, and the reverse happens to straighten it. Place a hand on your upper arm while bending and straightening to feel this.

How to do it well and safely: keep the arm's-distance spacing so that sticks and hoops never hit a neighbour, move with control rather than flinging the limbs, keep your back straight, and breathe normally rather than holding your breath. Judge your own performance: were you exactly on the count, and did your movement match the demonstrator's? A class moving perfectly together is a satisfying sight, and that shared rhythm is part of the joy of the drill.

Bullying is hurting or frightening someone on purpose, again and again, when the person finds it hard to defend themselves. It can be physical (pushing, hitting, snatching things), verbal (name-calling, teasing about looks, caste, region, accent or ability), social (leaving someone out, spreading rumours) or cyber (hurtful messages, photos or posts online). A one-time fight between equals is a conflict; bullying is about repeated harm and an imbalance of power.

Four roles appear in almost every bullying situation:

• Bully: the person doing the harm.
• Target (victim): the person being harmed.
• Bystanders: people who see it happen and do nothing.
• Upstander: a bystander who chooses to act.

The game Baraf Pani (ice and water), a familiar Indian freeze-tag, is adapted to feel these roles. One student is the Bully, one is the Upstander, and the rest run as Bystanders and Victims. When the Bully tags someone, that player freezes (‘baraf’). A Bystander can unfreeze a frozen player (‘pani’) with a tap, but only while saying something reassuring, such as ‘You are not alone’. The Upstander can stop the Bully by tagging them and saying firmly, ‘Stop, that is not okay.’ Roles are rotated so everyone experiences each one.

The game teaches two truths. First, kindness from even one person makes the target feel less alone. Second, the bully loses power when someone stands up. In real life, being an upstander does not mean fighting. Safe ways to act are:

• Refuse to laugh or join in, and do not forward hurtful messages.
• Stay with the target and invite them to join your group.
• Say calmly, ‘Stop, this is not okay,’ only if it is safe to do so.
• Tell a trusted adult: a teacher, the school counsellor or a parent. Reporting is not ‘complaining’; it is protecting someone.

If you are the target, remember it is not your fault. Speak to an adult you trust; in India, the child helpline 1098 is free. In circle time, share how each role felt. Many students find that being the Upstander felt the strongest of all.

Harassment is unwanted behaviour that makes a person feel uncomfortable, scared, insulted or unsafe. It can be words, gestures, staring, following, unwanted touching, or messages and photos sent online. A key idea is consent: your body and your personal space belong to you, and no one, whether a stranger or someone you know, has the right to touch you or speak to you in a way that makes you feel unsafe. Children are protected by law in India, and adults have a duty to act when a child reports harm.

Harassment is stopped more effectively when the people around a victim, the society, are alert and act together. The game Char Tali (four claps) is used to feel this. Four lines are marked: a starting line, a warning line, a danger line and a finish line. One team plays the ‘Aggressor’ and the other plays ‘Society’. One member of Society is the victim, who stands at the finish line with their back to the field. The other Society members spread across the warning and danger zones, with fewer in the danger zone.

The Aggressors creep forward while the victim's back is turned. The victim claps four times and then turns around quickly; any Aggressor caught moving is out. Society members try to make Aggressors move, without touching them, so the victim can spot them. If an Aggressor reaches the warning line, Society players in the warning zone are out; reaching the danger line puts out those in the danger zone. Aggressors win by reaching the finish line; Society wins by protecting the victim.

The lessons are clear. A victim who is alert and keeps looking is harder to harm. Society that acts early, at the ‘warning’ stage, protects better than one that waits for ‘danger’. When society fails, the victim is left alone, and in circle time students often say how bad that felt.

In real life:

• Trust your feeling that something is wrong; say ‘No’ loudly, move away and go to a safe place.
• Tell a trusted adult as soon as possible, even if you were told to keep it secret.
• If you see someone being harassed, do not ignore it: stay near them, get an adult, call 1098 (child helpline) or 112 (emergency).
• Never share personal details or photos with people you meet online.

Heat always flows from a hotter object to a colder one. When the two objects touch, the heat passes directly through the contact: this is conduction. Materials that let heat pass easily are good conductors (metals such as steel, iron, copper and aluminium). Materials that slow heat down are poor conductors or insulators (wood, plastic, cloth, air). This is why a steel spoon in hot chai soon feels hot, while a wooden spoon does not, and why handles of pans are made of plastic or wood.

Your body is a heat source. Muscles that work hard produce a lot of heat, so after exercise your skin, especially your palms, is warm. In the Conduction Relay two teams of 5-6 stand 20 metres apart. Team A holds an object (say, a steel bottle) in their hands. On the second whistle each runner covers the 20 m in four parts: galloping for 5 m, hopping for 5 m, duck walking for 5 m and sprinting for the last 5 m, and then hands the object to a partner in Team B. Team B feels how warm the object has become. Then Team B does the same course holding the object wrapped in a handkerchief or towel, and Team A notices that this time the object is hardly warmed.

What happened? During the run, heat from warm hands flowed into the object by conduction. The cloth trapped air and acted as an insulator, so little heat reached the object. Teachers can repeat the relay with wooden, plastic and metal objects and at different times of day: a metal object left in the morning sun will feel hot even before the race.

How to run it well and safely:

• Use objects that are smooth, unbreakable and not heavy; no glass.
• Never use an object that has been lying in strong sun until it is too hot to hold.
• Keep lanes separate so runners do not collide during the duck walk or sprint.
• Duck walk with your back straight and stop if your knees hurt.

In circle time, describe which object felt warmest and explain why using the words conductor and insulator. Link it to sport: why do cricketers wear gloves, and why does a metal railing at the ground burn in May?

Every movement in sport is one of three kinds of motion, or a mix of them.

• Linear motion: the body moves along a straight line, all parts covering the same distance in the same time. Example: a 100 m sprint.
• Rotational motion: the body turns about a fixed point or axis. Example: a discus thrower spinning, a fielder spinning before a throw, a gymnast's somersault.
• Projectile motion: an object is thrown into the air and then moves only under gravity, following a curved path called a parabola. Example: a cricket ball thrown from the boundary, a shot put, a long jumper in flight.

In the Motion-in-Action Relay, 4-5 teams rotate through three stations. Station 1: run a straight 20 m and record the time. Station 2: spin three times around a cone, then sprint to the next station, and record the time. Station 3: throw a softball at a target such as a bucket and measure how far it travelled. The fastest or best team at each station gets 5 points, the next 3 and the last 1, and points are added for the final result.

Measurements are written in two unit systems. In the SI system, length is in metres (m), mass in kilograms (kg) and time in seconds (s). In the CGS system, length is in centimetres (cm), mass in grams (g) and time in seconds. Time is the same in both. To convert length, use 1 m = 100 cm, so a throw of 14.5 m is 1450 cm.

Science behind the stations:

• Speed in linear motion = distance ÷ time. A runner who covers 20 m in 4 s has a speed of 5 m/s (500 cm/s).
• In rotation, a force towards the centre, the centripetal force, keeps you moving in a circle; you feel your feet and body leaning in. Dizziness after spinning comes from fluid in the inner ear that keeps swirling after you stop.
• For a projectile, the angle of release and speed decide the distance. On flat ground, with air resistance ignored, an angle close to 45° gives the greatest range.

Safety: spin slowly at first and sit down if you feel very dizzy; throw only when the target area is clear and only on the teacher's signal; walk, never run, to collect balls.

Muscles need energy to move, and they get most of it by using oxygen to break down food (mainly glucose). This releases energy, carbon dioxide and water. When you exercise harder, muscles need more oxygen and produce more carbon dioxide, so two things happen: you breathe faster and deeper, and your heart beats faster to pump oxygen-rich blood to the muscles. In very hard, short efforts the muscles also make some energy without enough oxygen, which is why you keep panting after a sprint while the body ‘repays’ the oxygen.

How to measure:

• Pulse: place the tips of your index and middle fingers (not the thumb, which has its own pulse) on the thumb side of the inside of the wrist. This is the radial artery. Count the beats for 60 seconds, or for 15 seconds and multiply by 4. The answer is in beats per minute (bpm).
• Breathing rate: count how many times your chest rises in 60 seconds (breaths per minute).

For a healthy 13-year-old at rest, the pulse is usually about 60-100 bpm and breathing about 12-20 breaths per minute; fitter students often have lower resting values.

In Breathing in Action, teams of 4-5 first sit quietly for one minute and record resting values. Then they move through three zones and record values after each: Zone 1 (low intensity) walking on the spot or light jogging for 2 minutes; Zone 2 (medium) jumping jacks or fast jogging for 1 minute; Zone 3 (high) a 30 m sprint or 30 seconds of burpees. Finally they sit for 3 minutes, checking the pulse every 30 seconds to see how fast it returns to resting. The quicker the return, the better the fitness.

Safety: students with asthma keep their inhaler nearby and may stay in Zone 2; stop if you feel faint. A useful breathing drill for recovery: breathe in through the nose for 3 counts and out through the mouth for 5.

No muscle moves on its own. Every movement starts as a signal from the brain (or, for reflexes, the spinal cord) that travels along motor nerves to the muscle fibres, telling them to contract. At the same time, sensors in muscles, tendons, joints, eyes and inner ear send information back to the brain about where your body is and how it is moving. This two-way teamwork of nerves and muscles is called neuromuscular control. Your sense of where your limbs are without looking is called proprioception; close your eyes and touch your nose to test it.

Good neuromuscular control gives quick reaction time (the time between a signal and the start of a response), accurate movements and good balance. It improves with practice: the more often a movement is repeated correctly, the smoother and faster the nerve pathway becomes. That is why a new skill feels clumsy at first and later feels automatic.

Flexibility is the range of movement at a joint. Flexible muscles let the body reach, twist and react without strain. But flexibility alone is not enough; you must also control the body in a stretched position.

The Flex and React Challenge joins the two. While holding a hamstring stretch, a student must catch a ball tossed gently to them. While holding a lunge, they must touch a cone when the teacher calls. Points are given for a good stretch (1 point), for a correct and quick response (1 point) and a bonus for doing both smoothly together (3 points). Later variations add balancing on one foot, a quick lunge on command, or pairs giving each other signals.

Doing it safely and well:

• Warm up first; never stretch cold muscles hard.
• Stretch only to mild tension, never to pain, and do not bounce.
• In the lunge, keep the front knee over the ankle, not past the toes, and the back straight.
• Throws must be gentle and underarm.

To judge progress, measure your sit-and-reach or count catches out of ten, repeat after a few weeks of regular practice, and compare. In circle time, think about everyday neuromuscular control: catching a falling glass, riding a cycle through traffic, or a batter adjusting to a ball that swings late.

The musculoskeletal system is the body's machine for movement. It has three main parts.

• Bones (an adult has 206) form the frame, protect organs (the skull protects the brain, the ribs protect the heart and lungs) and act as levers.
• Joints are where bones meet. Hinge joints such as the elbow and knee move mainly in one direction, like a door. Ball-and-socket joints such as the shoulder and hip move in many directions. A pivot joint in the neck lets the head turn. Ligaments hold bone to bone at a joint.
• Muscles attach to bones through tough cords called tendons. When a muscle contracts it pulls the bone and the joint moves.

Joint movements have names. Flexion bends a joint and makes the angle smaller (curling the arm). Extension straightens it (straightening the arm). Pushing moves a load away from the body; pulling brings it towards the body. Balancing needs many small muscles around the ankle, knee, hip and trunk to make constant tiny corrections.

In Move Like a Machine, teams of 4-6 work around a circuit of four stations:

Teams score 3 points for finishing fastest, 1 for proper form and 1 bonus for encouraging one another, so good technique and teamwork count, not just speed.

Form and safety: in curls keep elbows by your sides and do not swing the back; in squat jumps land softly on the balls of the feet with knees bent and pointing over the toes; in push-ups keep the body in a straight line from head to heels (do them on the knees if needed); in balance, fix your eyes on one point. Stop if a joint, rather than a muscle, hurts.

The body is not fixed; it adapts to what you regularly ask it to do. This is the whole reason training works. The key is a slightly bigger challenge than normal (called overload), repeated regularly, followed by enough rest.

• Strength training (push-ups, squats, band pulls, carrying loads) makes muscles stronger and, over time, slightly bigger. Bones that are loaded, for example through jumping and weight-bearing work, also become stronger and denser. This matters at your age, because the bone strength you build in your teens helps you for life.
• Endurance training (jogging, skipping, cycling, long walks) improves the heart, lungs and the muscles' ability to keep working without tiring. You can go further before getting out of breath.
• Flexibility training (forward bends, lunges, shoulder reaches) gradually increases the range of movement at joints.
• Recovery is where adaptation actually happens. Exercise causes tiny wear in muscle; during rest, sleep and good food, the body repairs it and builds back stronger. Without rest, you get tired, weaker and more prone to injury.

In Adapt and Achieve, small teams spend about five minutes at each of four stations: Strength (push-ups, squats or band pulls), Endurance (jumping jacks, running on the spot or rope skipping), Flexibility (forward bends, lunges, shoulder reaches) and Recovery (lying down for deep breathing or gentle stretching). There is no competition here. The aim is effort and personal best, and teachers may give recognition such as ‘Best Strength Effort’ or ‘Flexibility Star’.

Training sensibly:

• Increase only a little at a time, for example 2-3 more push-ups or 1 more minute of skipping each week.
• Use body-weight exercises at your age; heavy weights should only be used under expert supervision.
• Do not train the same muscles very hard on two days in a row.
• Sleep 8-10 hours, drink water, and eat dal, eggs, milk, curd, paneer, pulses, fruit and vegetables for repair.

To track adaptation, record a baseline (say, push-ups in one minute), train for four weeks, and test again. Link it to daily life: carrying groceries up stairs is strength, walking to school is endurance, and touching your toes to tie a shoelace is flexibility.

At the end of the unit you rate yourself on a simple 1-to-5 scale in several areas. Self-assessment is not a test with marks; it is an honest look in a mirror so that you can see where you are and choose what to improve next.

The areas include:

• Appreciation for teammates: can you see a teammate's strengths and weaknesses, encourage them, and value that a team works best when members have different skills?
• Overcoming bullying and overcoming harassment: do you stand up against it only sometimes, or confidently and every time, and do you seek help from a trusted adult?
• Concepts of physics in PE: can you spot force, balance, motion and heat in an activity, and can you use them to play better?
• Concepts of biology in PE: can you explain breathing, pulse, muscles and bones and apply them correctly?
• Understanding muscles: can you name the main muscles in each activity, locate them, and notice when a classmate is struggling with a muscle problem and tell the teacher?

How to assess yourself well:

• Base your rating on what you actually did, not what you wish you had done. Think of one real example for each rating.
• Compare yourself with your own past, not with the best player in class.
• Choose one area to improve and write a specific goal: ‘I will name the five muscles used in squats by next week’ is better than ‘I will learn muscles’.
• Ask a teacher or friend if your rating seems fair.

Personal growth in PE also means looking after your mental health. Feeling nervous before a race, sad after losing, or left out is normal. But if you or a friend feel low, worried or angry most days, cannot sleep, stop enjoying things you used to like, or are being hurt by someone, that is a sign to talk to a trusted adult or school counsellor. In India, Tele-MANAS (14416) gives free mental health support, and 1098 helps children in difficulty. Asking for help is a sign of strength, just as an athlete asks a coach for help with technique.

Motivation, courage and discipline grow from small steps: turning up, trying a hard task, keeping a simple progress log, and celebrating improvement, your own and your teammates'.