Abstract:

A change in the curriculum, for any school subject, obviously adds new components to the actual activity performed with students during classes.

The changes that have occurred in the last few years as far as the Physical Education class is concerned were numerous, and this fact determined us to carry out a study by means of which we wanted to highlight the significant content differences between the newly proposed curricula and the already existing ones.

In our study, we also intended to detect if the assessment means for Physical Education correspond to the new tendencies outlined in the curriculum.

The study followed the changes that arose in the primary school curriculum and their relationship with the School National Assessment System.

To this end, the existent school curriculum content elements, drawn up between 2003 and 2005, were compared to the new curriculum for Physical Education, drawn up in the period 2013-2014, and whose application in the educational process began in 2015.

The content elements of the two curricula were analysed on grades and considerable differences were noticed in terms of the approach to practising physical exercise.

Therefore, the concept according to which the school subject Physical Education involves using physical exercise as a means of developing performance in the sports domain was replaced by the idea of using physical exercise in order to maintain good health and to form a healthy and active lifestyle.

Another important difference is represented by the new curriculum’s learning process orientation towards forming certain abilities in students, whereas the old curriculum focused on learning by means of objectives.

In the new primary school curriculum (2015), the content elements are oriented towards the formation and development of the psychomotor abilities in small schoolchildren, whereas in the previous curriculum, the psychomotor content was not specified.

From the point of view of the assessment process, the performance-in sports-based assessment is maintained. This fact creates a discrepancy between the content elements and the assessment method. The performance obtained in sports cannot show the methods by means of which the psychomotor abilities were obtained.

As a result of the performed analysis, we consider that, in order to efficiently implement the new curriculum in school activity, a new assessment method must be drawn up, which can better reflect the appropriation level of this new curriculum’s content.

Thus, we suggest the use of a number of relevant psychomotor content tests, such as Harris’ laterality test, the Ozeretski – Guillmainn test and the spatial orientation test – Piaget-Head.

To sum up, we could draw the conclusion that the new primary school Physical Education curriculum is accessible, that it proposes attractive elements to arouse the students’ interest during classes and that it is easy to approach because it doesn’t entail previous physical training. The activities are regarded as games and not as a competition, hence making the classes more engaging. As a consequence, it is necessary for a new assessment system to be applied, which should lay the emphasis on other educational skills, too, and not only on the performance component.

Keywords:

Curriculum, psychomotricity, evaluations, physical education, primary school.