Circuit Training Unit at Hornby Primary School

During my third placement at Hornby Primary School (MLE with years 1-3) I designed a circuit training unit.  This fit into the school wide focus on sports for that term.  We began by looking at what circuit training is and a circuit that the Crusaders rugby team use in their training sessions.  The children loved getting up and being the tuakana by showing what each activity was (i.e. lunges, squats, planking) and the teina very much enjoyed trying the activities out!  After that we did brainstorms that looked at individual sports, what muscles were needed to be developed, and some exercises that could help us in that.

Furthering on from that children were able to design their own circuit based around a certain sport. They needed to research which muscles needed to be developed and the certain activities that would help do just that.  Children worked collaboratively to research, design, and create their circuit.

The next step was to give it a go!  The initial plan was to buddy up with another group and teach each group their circuit, explain why they chose those activities, and their process for designing the circuit. However, Papatūānuku didn't bring out the sunshine and gave us rain instead.  But that didn't stop us! Instead we decided to do the circuits in the hall and have randomly selected groups teach and explain their circuits to the rest of us.  Have a look at how it went!

We started off by setting expectations and reiterating school values so that all children could be successful in this environment.

All children introduced their circuit in their groups and explained the activities and why they chose them.  I was there to tautoko if need be.

This is how we set up our stations and we had them as a rotation for one minute at each station. 

Here are some of the stations in action!

All children were highly successful in their circuit trainings and had a lot of fun!  This learning didn't just stay within the allocated time frame for the unit, either.  We then used circuits for fitness for the week and I often saw students creating and teaching others their own circuit during break times.  Tau kē!