The purpose of PLAE Sport Programs is to develop a passion for physical activity and sport in our community. This is accomplished by designing programs that offer developmental opportunities where participants can enjoy activity and movement (physical domain of learning), develop Physical and Sport Literacy benchmarks (cognitive and affective domain of learning), and develop the social skills and teamwork skills (social domain of learning) to enjoy physical activity and sport as they grow.

PLAE Sport is guided by the values of PLAE: Purpose, Learning, Activity, and Engagement.

Purpose: Everything is done so that people can succeed.
Learning: Everyone has the potential to grow.
Activity: Creating dynamic and meaningful learning experiences.
Engagement: Become part of the learning journey.

Using these values, PLAE has designed programs and classes using the most current practices and research in sport and education. Following developmental benchmarks and current research (Physical and Sport Literacy development, Long-Term Athlete Development, and domains of learning), families can sign up for weekly one-hour classes that will build the skills, understanding, and values so that participants and our community can be active and competitive for life.

Each program follows the vision of creating an active and competitive community by using our domains based approach to explore the different elements needed to develop well rounded individuals who can progress through the different levels of programming offered. Each program, lesson, and activity are designed to ensure participants are developing the skills, understanding, and values needed to be a part of an active and competitive community.

PLAE Sport is founded on the idea of progress and development. As participants enter and leave the program they will be developing the tools and understanding that will help them discover their passion for play and spark the interest for sport competition. To accomplish this, the programs are designed on the following principles based on a child's Physical Literacy and Sport Literacy development, giving them the tools to accomplish their goals.

PLAE Sport believes that participants should be exposed to and have experience in as many different sports and activity contexts as possible. Why? Because it is a central part to the holistic development of young movers and athletes that could lead to success as they complete their Physical and Sport Literacy development (Ferguson, 2013). To do this, we will be exploring the different dimensions and elements behind the Teaching Games for Understanding approach (TGfU). PlaySport, Physical and Health Education Canada, and many other provincial organizations have advocated the use of this approach to enhance participant development, however many local community programs have not adopted this 21st century approach.

What is TGfU? Bunker and Thorpe (1982) developed TGfU around the concept of teaching kids games by playing games. Butler et al. (2008) identified six Basic TGfU Concepts:

Teach activities and sport through games.
Break games into their simplest format - then increase complexity.
Participants are intelligent performers in games.
Every learner is important and is involved.
Participants need to know the subject matter.
Need to match participants’ skill and challenge.

Current 21st century approaches to TGfU have advocated for a thematic approach to teaching activity and sport. Rather than teaching sport-specific units (e.g., volleyball unit, soccer unit), children and youth gain skills and knowledge to apply to different sports by playing a variety of games associated with 4 game categories:

Target Games in which the participant sends an object at a target.

Net/Wall Games in which the participant sends an object into space trying to make it difficult for an opponent to return it.

Striking/Fielding Games in which the participant strikes an object so it is placed away from defenders in the field.

Territory Games in which participants invade an opponent's territory to score.