The COVID-19 epidemic in the spring of 2020 provided a completely new and different teaching
approach, as the pedagogical process had to continue, despite the closure of educational
institutions. Teachers thus had to train for distance teaching overnight. In this period of crisis,
when movement was severely restricted, Physical education (PE) became a key and the only
subject that could maintain a student’s motivation to learn, physical and mental condition, and an
active lifestyle. Therefore, distance Physical education became the responsibility of primary school
teachers, who had to make sure that they teach PE to the same extent and quality as other subjects
and as they had taught before the epidemic. In the theoretical part of this master's thesis, we
described the problem of movement deficiencies and physical/sports activities in society and the
importance of these for the child. We defined the PE and its important role for students, describe
teachers who teach PE, and highlighted some key factors that affect the quality of teaching PE.
Finally, we described distance education and listed some general didactic guidelines, as well as all
current recommendations and guidelines of experts for distance PE. The empirical part of our
master's thesis contained a quantitative study involving 181 primary school teachers who taught
the subject of distance PE during the first epidemic, in the 2019/20 school year. With a survey
questionnaire and analysis of the results, we gained an insight into the state of teaching distance
PE and highlighted some of the problems that arise in teaching. We found that primary school
teachers mostly successfully faced the challenges of teaching the distance PE, as they taught it to
the same extent as before the epidemic. Teaching PE at a distance has proven to be more
challenging than teaching in school and easier than teaching other subjects. Most teachers taught
through videos and written instructions, and the most common method was the demonstration
method. The most often chosen stage in the teaching process was the consolidation, repetition and
training of the learning material, while individualisations and differentiations were not included in
the lessons. Natural forms of movement and games, athletic content, hiking, ball games, and dance
content were the most frequently selected content for distance PE, and the selected goals were
most often related to the development of motor and functional abilities. During the epidemic,
teachers did not fully realize their teaching goals, nor did they assess students' knowledge, but they
monitored or checked their performance of sent tasks at home. Primary school teachers faced a
variety of problems, none of which stood out in particular. In giving opinions, they were more
united and agreed that PE is a suitable and meaningful subject for distance teaching, that teaching
was of lower quality than in school and that they need more guidance from the PE curriculum and
examples of physical/sports activities for distance teaching. Based on the latest results, we have
collected some tasks and activities for each set of teaching contents from the PE curriculum that
will help primary school teachers in teaching distance PE. By analysing the results, we confirmed
that distance PE cannot replace PE at school and that primary school teachers need professional
development to improve the quality of distance teaching.
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