How To Structure Your Yoga P.E Class

Teaching yoga in PE classes is surprisingly different from teaching a yoga class for a club. When we teach PE it’s important that the majority of the class, all the children are physically active. This means there is a large focus on just one of Patajali’s eight limbs of yoga - asana. Asana, or the poses, make up the largest part of PE lessons but in order to stay authentic to yoga we can still incorporate lots of others beneficial elements of yoga when we structure our class correctly. Let me talk you through my class structure so that you’ll be able to create your own engaging, fun and active PE lessons. 

Looking at the Nation Curriculum for PE, yoga covers the Key Stage 1 expectation to “develop balance, agility and coordination, and begin to apply these to a range of activities". Yoga undeniably involves all of these skills. Yoga poses and flows help children explore the capabilities of their bodies and help them build their strength, balance, coordination, flexibility and confidence. Children in Key Stage 2 should "develop flexibility, strength, technique, control and balance" and should also access "a broad range opportunities to extend agility, balance and coordination, individually and with others".  Sharing poses with children is a great way to develop their fitness and yoga provides time to work alone without any competition which makes it especially valuable. Partner and group poses still provide an opportunity for collaborative learning but without the pressure of “letting the team down” which so many children worry about in team sports.

We always want to start the class with some grounding - even if it’s only 30 seconds. I also use a hand rub breath - we run the hands together to generate some warmth then put hands on heart and take two deep breaths. Always starting the class with this breath makes it familiar and sets the tone for the class.

Next we want to warm up our bodies. I do this with the sun salutations sequence. It’s a great way to warm up with dynamic stretches and opens the body. It’s how yogis have warmed up for thousands of years! Depending on the age group you can sing my salutation song to the tune of “row, row, row your boat” – find this on my website.

Once warm we want to teach some child safe poses. I theme my weeks so we might have a balance focus with poses such as Tree and Warrior iii or we might focus on strength building poses like boat pose and Warrior ii. Children should have time to practice the pose and can work in pairs to give each other feedback.

I always include yoga games in P.E and this is a great opportunity to give your class’ favourite game a yoga twist. A school I worked in recently loved to play magic 11 – the children stand in a circle and take turns counting up to 11 choosing to say 1, 2 or 4 numbers in a row. The person who has to say 11 sits down. We made a circle in tree pose and when somebody was out they sat in butterfly pose. It challenged the children to hold the poses for longer and was a fun way to keep them engaged. Find lots of other games ideas in my resource bank on innerchildyogaschool.com.

It’s really important to end the class with a short relaxation. This is a crucial part of the class and should never be skipped. Start my sharing some slower poses with the class such as child’s pose, seated forward fold and some laying twists. Children should then lay down for relaxation – although traditionally adults lay on their back with feet falling to the sides and palms up I allow children to lay however is comfortable for them. A simple relaxation is to ask them to tense and then release their feet, hands and then face. You can give them a minute of silence or play a calming piece of music. Bring htem back into the room by asking them to first notice their breath, then wriggles fingers and toes before taking any other stretch which feels good then coming back to seated.

I always close class with a final breathing technique such as humming bee breath and then saying Namaste. To enjoy humming bee breath we inhale through the nose and then release with a hummmm sound for as long as is comfortable. This is a super breath for calming the nervous system.

I’d love to know how you get along sharing some yoga in P.E. If this has inspired you to add yoga to your school’s P.E curriculum please download my free yoga for schools information pack. I have ready to print and teach plans for yoga in PE, after school clubs and a huge resource bank to help you share yoga and mindfulness in a safe and age appropriate way.