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AQA GCSE PE revision

These activities are mapped to AQA GCSE Physical Education 8582 and cover the theory content only. Thirty-four of them, across all seven content areas and all twenty-four sub-topics. **The set is unusually even and unusually uniform.** Every sub-topic has an activity, which is rare here, and every activity runs fifteen to seventeen minutes with fourteen or fifteen steps. One a week covers the theory course in a school year, and you can say in advance what any of them will cost a class. The cost of that evenness is that nothing stands out. There is no longer, harder activity to reach for when a class needs a topic genuinely rebuilt, and the written tasks ask for thirty to eighty words, well short of AQA's nine-mark question. Both are set out below.

This page lists what we actually have for AQA GCSE Physical Education 8582. It is built from the live activities, so it is accurate on the day you read it.

Theory only, and the forty per cent that is not

Worth saying before anything else. AQA 8582 is sixty per cent written papers and forty per cent non-exam assessment: performance in three activities, plus the written analysis and evaluation of performance.

Everything on this page is for the sixty per cent. Nothing on a screen improves a student's badminton, and the analysis coursework is about their own performance, which we have never seen.

Complete, sub-topic by sub-topic

All seven content areas are covered, and so are all twenty-four sub-topics underneath them: applied anatomy and physiology, movement analysis, physical training, use of data, sports psychology, socio-cultural influences, and health, fitness and wellbeing.

That completeness is worth stating because it is not the normal state of affairs here. Most subjects on this site are strongest where authoring started and thin out towards the end of the specification. This one is finished, which means you can pick by what a class needs rather than by what exists.

Two areas are worth a specific mention. Use of data is a content area in its own right in this specification, which catches departments out, and it has two activities: qualitative against quantitative data, and presenting and analysing it. Movement analysis covers planes and axes, joint movements with their muscle actions, and the three lever classes with mechanical advantage.

Uniform, which cuts both ways

Every activity in this set runs fifteen to seventeen minutes and has fourteen or fifteen steps. Nothing is shorter, nothing is longer. It is the most predictable set on this site.

For planning, that is a genuine convenience. One activity a week is a term and a half of theory revision, and the slot in your lesson is the same size every time.

For teaching, it is a limitation. There is no twenty-five minute activity to set when a class has genuinely not understood cardiac output, and no five-minute one for the end of a lesson that finished early. Every topic is treated as costing the same, and topics do not.

If you need a longer run on one theme, build a sprint from three or four of them and share one link, which is the nearest thing to a longer activity this set offers.

The nine-mark question, and what these ask instead

AQA's papers end with extended-response questions worth nine marks, needing a developed argument with applied examples and a judgement.

The written tasks in these activities ask for thirty to eighty words. That is a short answer. It rehearses knowing the point, not building the case, and a student who has only ever written sixty words will not produce a nine-mark answer under exam conditions.

Use these to check that the knowledge is there, then set the extended writing yourself, with AQA's own papers from our past paper archive supplying the question stems and the mark schemes.

The calculations

PE has more arithmetic in it than its reputation suggests: cardiac output from stroke volume and heart rate, maximum heart rate from age, aerobic and anaerobic training zones as percentages, one-rep max percentages, and the mechanical advantage of a lever.

All of that is present, and thirty-two of the thirty-four activities include a question where the student types a value rather than picking one, which closes the elimination route four options always leave open.

Twenty-six of those prompts name the operation in words. The student performs the calculation rather than deciding which calculation the situation needs, and the deciding is the examined part.

Using them

The three activities embedded further down are playable here without an account.

The lists below group by classroom use, worked out from what each activity contains. For how each is meant to be run, see ready-to-run revision activities. Everything else, by subject and board, is on the revision pages.

Edexcel GCSE PE is the other board's course, and our coverage of it is uneven in a way this one is not, which that page sets out area by area.

What this page does not do

Nothing for the practical forty per cent, including the analysis and evaluation coursework.

No extended writing practice at the length AQA examines.

No diagram labelling. Students are asked to identify bones, muscles, planes and axes, and apart from one hotspot activity these are covered in words rather than on an image.

It does not track anything, so there is no completion list to check.

Every live Physical Education activity for AQA

34 activities, all mapped to AQA GCSE Physical Education (8582).

Good for independent study (1)

See all 34, by topic

Try it with your class

AQA Physical Education 17 minutes

Bones, Joints and Named Muscles

15 steps, 10 interactive, 10 activity types.

Best used for
Independent study Intervention Mock preparation
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.

Try one question

Which bone is in the shin, the lower leg?

AQA Physical Education 16 minutes

Heart Rate Zone Calculations

14 steps, 10 interactive, 10 activity types.

Best used for
Homework Intervention Mock preparation
  • Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.

Try one question

The aerobic training zone is which share of the maximum heart rate?

AQA Physical Education 16 minutes

The Information Processing Model

14 steps, 10 interactive, 10 activity types.

Best used for
Homework Intervention Mock preparation
  • Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.

Try one question

What happens at the input stage of the model?

Common questions

How complete is the coverage?

Complete, at the level of the specification's sub-topics. All seven content areas and all twenty-four sub-topics have at least one activity, thirty-four in total. That is unusual here: most subjects are stronger at the start of the specification than the end.

How long is each one?

Fifteen to seventeen minutes, every single one, and fourteen or fifteen steps. This is the most uniform set on the site, which makes it easy to plan a rota around and means there is nothing longer to reach for when a topic needs rebuilding properly.

Do they prepare students for the nine-mark question?

No. The written tasks here ask for thirty to eighty words, which rehearses a short answer rather than an extended one. AQA's nine-mark questions need a developed argument and that is not what these ask for.

Are the calculations covered?

Covered, but gently. Cardiac output, maximum heart rate, training zones, one-rep max percentages and mechanical advantage all appear, and thirty-two of the thirty-four activities have a typed-number question. Twenty-six of those prompts name the operation, so the student does the sum rather than choosing it.

What about the practical assessment?

Nothing here touches it. Forty per cent of this GCSE is practical performance and the written analysis of it, and no screen revises either.

Will I see who has completed them?

No. Following a shared link records nothing about who followed it, which is a deliberate choice about children's data.

Put one in front of a class

Tell us the subject and how long you have. You get a link to hand out, and it marks itself.

Create a free teacher account

Written by David Wright, Co-Founder, DoRevision.

David builds DoRevision with his son Noah (15). David has spent his career building EdTech products, and Noah has grown up watching lines of code being written. As a student at an important stage of his education, together they are building the revision platform that Noah is using to help revise for his GCSE exams and hopes his friends will find useful too.

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