BC PHE Curriculum Guide: Aligning Your Lessons with Big Ideas (K-5)

British Columbia's redesigned PHE curriculum emphasizes physical literacy, well-being, and lifelong healthy living. But translating the curriculum document into day-to-day lessons can feel overwhelming.

This guide breaks down the BC PHE framework into practical terms, helping you understand what to teach, when to teach it, and how to track your coverage across the school year.

Understanding the BC PHE Framework

The BC curriculum organizes PHE around three core components that work together:

Big Ideas

Big Ideas are the essential understandings students should develop at each grade level. They answer the question: "What should students remember years from now?"

Curricular Competencies

These are the skills and processes students develop. In PHE, they fall into four main categories:

1. Physical Literacy — Movement skills and fitness
2. Healthy and Active Living — Making healthy choices
3. Social and Community Health — Building relationships and contributing to community
4. Mental Well-being — Understanding emotions and developing resilience

Content

Content includes the specific knowledge and movement skills students learn—the "what" they practice to develop competencies.

Big Ideas by Grade Band

Understanding how Big Ideas progress helps you build on previous learning and prepare students for what comes next.

Kindergarten and Grade 1

At this age, students are discovering what their bodies can do and learning to move safely with others.

Key Big Ideas:

• Daily physical activity helps us develop movement skills and physical literacy
• Learning about our bodies and making healthy choices helps us look after ourselves
• Good relationships contribute to our health and well-being

Focus areas:

• Basic locomotor movements (walking, running, jumping, hopping)
• Body awareness and spatial awareness
• Following simple rules and taking turns
• Identifying emotions and basic self-regulation

Grades 2 and 3

Students refine their movement skills and begin applying them in game situations.

Key Big Ideas:

• Developing physical literacy and a positive relationship with physical activity are important for a healthy lifestyle
• We can strengthen our relationship with others through communication
• Understanding our emotions can help us take care of ourselves

Focus areas:

• Combined movements (skip, gallop, slide)
• Manipulative skills (throwing, catching, kicking)
• Cooperative games and team challenges
• Goal-setting for physical activity
• Recognizing how physical activity affects mood

Grades 4 and 5

Students apply skills in more complex situations and begin making independent health choices.

Key Big Ideas:

• Physical literacy contributes to our health, well-being, and ability to be physically active for life
• Healthy relationships require mutual respect
• We can make choices to promote and protect our health

Focus areas:

• Sport-specific skills and tactics
• Fitness components (cardio, strength, flexibility)
• Leadership and fair play
• Critical thinking about media and health information
• Stress management and coping strategies

How to Track Coverage Across the Year

Many teachers reach spring and realize they've spent most of the year on games, leaving curricular competencies in mental well-being or social health barely touched.

Create a Coverage Map

At the start of each term, map out your intended coverage:

Track What You Actually Teach

After each unit, check off what you covered. Compare planned vs. actual coverage monthly to catch drift early.

Identify Patterns

Common coverage gaps include:

• Mental well-being — Often addressed only when issues arise
• Social health — Covered briefly in health units but not reinforced in PE
• Healthy living concepts — Skipped due to time constraints
• Fitness components — Strength and flexibility under-taught vs. cardio

Gap Analysis: Finding What's Missing

Halfway through the year, conduct a simple gap analysis:

1. List all curricular competencies for your grade level
2. Mark each as: Taught thoroughly / Touched on / Not yet addressed
3. Identify the gaps: What's "not yet addressed" that should be?
4. Adjust your plan: Intentionally build gaps into remaining lessons

Movement Skill Gaps

Within physical literacy, check your Fundamental Movement Skill coverage:

Locomotor: Running, jumping, hopping, skipping, galloping, sliding Stability: Balance, landing, rolling, body control Manipulative: Throwing, catching, kicking, striking, dribbling

Many teachers unconsciously favor certain skills (often locomotor and kicking) while under-teaching others (often striking and stability skills).

Practical Alignment Strategies

Strategy 1: Tag Every Lesson

Before teaching any lesson, identify:

• Which Big Idea does this connect to?
• Which curricular competencies am I addressing?
• Which movement skills or content am I covering?

Even informal documentation keeps you accountable and aware.

Strategy 2: Cross-Reference Activities

When choosing activities, ask: "Does this activity address my coverage gaps?"

A game of tag is fun, but does it develop manipulative skills? Probably not. Can you modify it to include throwing or catching? Now it serves multiple purposes.

Strategy 3: Integrate Competencies

One lesson can address multiple competencies:

Example: Partner throwing activity

• Physical Literacy: Throwing and catching skills
• Social Health: Communication with partner, cooperation
• Mental Well-being: Managing frustration when missing catches

Teaching students to recognize these connections deepens their learning.

Strategy 4: Use Curriculum Language

When giving feedback, use curriculum language:

• "Great stability on that landing!"
• "I see you using communication to work with your partner."
• "How did you feel after that active living challenge?"

This reinforces what students are learning beyond just skills.

Common Alignment Mistakes

Mistake 1: Activity-First Planning

Choosing a fun activity, then trying to justify it with curriculum connections. Instead, start with what students need to learn, then find activities that serve those outcomes.

Mistake 2: Ignoring the "Why"

Telling students what to do without explaining how it connects to the Big Ideas. Students who understand the purpose engage more deeply.

Mistake 3: Assessing Only Skills

The curriculum includes attitudes and knowledge, not just physical performance. Include self-reflection, peer feedback, and discussion in your assessment plan.

Mistake 4: Grade-Level Silos

Ignoring what came before or what comes next. Review the previous grade's outcomes to understand student foundations, and preview next year's to know where you're headed.

Making Curriculum Tracking Automatic

Manually tracking curriculum coverage is tedious. You're already planning lessons, teaching classes, and managing equipment—who has time for detailed spreadsheets?

What if your lesson planning tool tracked coverage automatically? Every activity you add gets tagged with curriculum outcomes. At any point, you can see exactly which competencies you've addressed and which need attention.

PlayLabs does exactly this. As you create and teach lesson plans, it builds a coverage map showing your progress across all curricular competencies. The gap analysis feature identifies what's under-taught and recommends activities to fill those gaps.

The BC PHE curriculum is well-designed, but implementing it effectively requires intentional planning and tracking. PlayLabs helps BC teachers stay aligned without the administrative burden. Because you became a teacher to work with students, not spreadsheets.