Making the Hidden Visible: Embedding Mindset Skills in PE & Health Through Active Learning
Session Description
Mindset, goal-setting and adaptability are already embedded within the Health and Physical Education curriculum, often appearing naturally through movement, challenge, teamwork and reflection. However, these skills are frequently “hidden in plain sight,” with students developing them without explicitly recognising what they are learning, and therefore struggling to transfer them beyond the PE classroom.
This highly active and experiential session explores how educators can bring these skills to the surface through intentional design of PE and Health learning experiences. Participants will engage in movement-based challenges and practical activities that demonstrate how small shifts in structure, language and facilitation can significantly influence student thinking, behaviour and emotional responses.
The session is grounded in the Think Set Go Framework, which supports the development of three key mindset components:
THINK – How thoughts, self-talk and perception influence performance and decision-making under pressure.
SET – How intention, reflection and focus prepare learners for meaningful action.
GO – How movement, challenge and adaptation build resilience, persistence and problem-solving.
Participants will explore how to be more intentional in teaching these already-existing curriculum skills so that students recognise them, develop them, and apply them beyond the PE context. The aim is to support students to become more proactive, develop stronger self-belief, persist through challenge, and adopt a more adaptive mindset.
The focus is on making implicit learning explicit, ensuring that mindset development is not accidental, but deliberately designed into everyday PE and Health practice in a practical and accessible way for teachers.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Identify how mindset, adaptability, persistence and goal-setting are already embedded within the Health and Physical Education curriculum.
- Recognise how everyday PE and Health activities naturally develop student mindset skills.
- Understand how intentional design of movement-based tasks can make these implicit learning moments explicit for students.
- Experience how small shifts in facilitation (rules, pressure, reflection and task design) can influence student thinking, behaviour and emotional responses in real time.
- Apply the Think Set Go Framework (Think, Set, Go) as a simple lens for designing active learning experiences that develop student engagement.
- Explore strategies to support students in transferring mindset skills beyond the PE classroom into other learning areas and life contexts.
- Identify how mindset, adaptability, persistence and goal-setting are already embedded within the Health and Physical Education curriculum.
- Recognise how everyday PE and Health activities naturally develop student mindset skills.
- Understand how intentional design of movement-based tasks can make these implicit learning moments explicit for students.
- Experience how small shifts in facilitation (rules, pressure, reflection and task design) can influence student thinking, behaviour and emotional responses in real time.
- Apply the Think Set Go Framework (Think, Set, Go) as a simple lens for designing active learning experiences that develop student engagement.
- Explore strategies to support students in transferring mindset skills beyond the PE classroom into other learning areas and life contexts.
Curriculum Level
7 - 10
Keywords
Curriculum Planning and Implementation, Games and Sports, Mental Health and Wellbeing, Student Engagement
Presentation Type
Classroom Workshop
F
12