Dr.Hab., Ph.D. V.K. Spirin
Velikie Luki State Academy of Physical Culture and Sport, Velikie Luki

Keywords: GTO Сomplex, set of pedagogical effects, control-test function, point rating scale, individualized technologies

Introduction. New project to give renewed impetus to the GTO [Ready for Labour and Defence] Complex system on the whole and its control-test function in particular is motivated by the increased demand for more efficient involvement of children, adolescents and young people in the physical culture and sport activity with due regard to the health-improvement and socio-cultural-background improvement aspects of the GTO system. The qualification-test component of the National GTO Physical Culture Complex establishes the national standards of individual training assessable through standardized physical tests and knowledge-and-skills tests. The scientifically substantiated qualification-test system of the GTO Complex may be redesigned based only on a sound pedagogical concept setting basic provisions for the preparatory training system, qualification test system and the general process management system for the GTO Complex with due authorities for physical education teachers.

The purpose of the study was to substantiate the methodological recommendations to help improve the efficiency of the existing control-test function of the GTO Complex and give the set of scientifically structured authorities for school physical education teachers.

Results and discussion. Good training and education of schoolchildren to prepare them for the GTO qualification tests comprise a top priority objective of the physical education teacher’s activity that should be attained through target efforts to maximize the potential benefits of the school physical education curriculum.

It should be noted, first of all, that the school physical education curriculum must be rated among the top priorities of the school educational process in general. And, second, it is important to bear in mind that the obligatory school physical education lessons are the only one form of motor activity for most of schoolchildren.

Furthermore, it should be clearly understood that physical education lessons only are by far not enough to secure purposeful physical training for the GTO qualification tests. School physical education lessons have certain natural limitations as a tool for motivated development of good individual motor qualities. The available scientific and procedural literature gives good reasons for this statement [5, 7]. In addition, the following rationale may be given. The physical development component of any school physical education curriculum normally takes most of the lesson time (23 to 25 minutes), although in practice at least half of this time has to be assigned to teaching and instruction. Therefore, the actual motor qualities development practices never take more than 12 minutes in total. For 11 years of school studies with 3 lessons per week, 1122 physical education lessons are given to the pupil. And there are only 224 hours scheduled for the purposeful motor qualities development within these lessons. Having divided these 224 hours by the 5 major target motor qualities mastering practices per 11 years of studies, the school teacher will be disappointed to find that he/she has only 4.1 hours per year to train each of the motor qualities. No wonder that a fair level of physical training cannot be attained for such time. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the above time assessment leaves apart the time claimed by the general management and tutorial tasks that may be quite significant. The situation with these time limitations of the school physical education curriculum is further aggravated by the long school vacations that take up to four months. The long vacation periods give no chance for accumulation of positive effects of the school training process. Targeted physical training of schoolchildren is impossible unless effects of the training sessions are multiplied and accumulated on an uninterrupted basis.

The above negative aspects of the school curriculum are further complicated by the actual specifics of the school physical education lessons. A school class normally unites pupils very different in physical fitness levels and skills, health conditions and limitations, and with very different individual value orientations and attitudes to physical culture. In this situation, the average physical load of the lesson may be too high for one pupil and too low for the other. Moreover, the school teacher is very limited in the attempts to reasonably adjust the training process to individual pupils. As things now stand, the school physical education curriculum offers no tools and practices to develop the desired individual motor qualities to the desired standard. The school physical education curriculum lacks efficient planning tools to vary the content of the training process so as to secure positive cumulative effects of the exercises focused on the desired physical quality development. The valid regulatory documents on the physical education curriculum structuring over the school year give no provisions for the repetition-based accumulation of training effects required to develop the desired motor qualities on a duly focused basis. Furthermore, the regulations give no clear mechanism to secure succession of the selectively focused physical developing actions on the body functions; and for this reason the teacher is limited in his/her efforts to develop the 5 key motor qualities for the standard terms of three months, six months and school year.

However, school enthusiasts have made attempts to attain good physical fitness levels within the above constraints of the school classes – mostly by targeted single-skill-developing lessons. We have no doubts that such one-dimension lessons that use selected training effects to develop the desired physical quality may somewhat improve the results achieved in a certain GTO qualification test. But what do they yield in general?

First, the pupil receives target one-sided training to attain a concrete result through the forced focus of the training process on one purpose. But this approach is unlikely reasonable in terms of both the health improvement effects anticipated by the school curriculum in general and the positive motivation of schoolchildren towards physical education lessons in particular.

Second, the valid standards of primary, basic and complete secondary education in Physical Education set too many tasks limited by too short time to give enough room for one-quality-focused lessons. Therefore, the teacher cannot afford giving too much attention to the selected motor qualities development lessons as the school curriculum objectives are much broader and need to be addressed. It is also important to mention that the focused processes to attain target development successes are easily reversible, since as soon as the focus of the lessons is changed, the positive effects are rapidly lost.

Therefore, it is quite obvious for today that the school physical education curriculum can only form a basis for target physical training processes that may be successful only when the school lessons are prudently combined with out-of-school sports. It is important for a school physical education teacher to select the best policies and practices for such integration of sports and find the best methodology to develop the desired motor qualities in the pupils.

The valid requirements to the popular physical education systems to secure the National GTO Physical Culture qualification tests being passed give some average model values to assess the concrete physical qualities of certain age/ sex groups. The GTO teacher in this context is required to train as many pupils as possible to ensure their success in passing the obligatory GTO qualification tests and being qualified for the relevant bronze/ silver/ and golden GTO badge. In this case, the training effects must be designed by the teacher to secure the reasonably complex development of motor qualities and skills to the standard levels required by the tests. The load-control models in this case, as far as the school curriculum is concerned, make no allowance for the concrete motor endowments and preferences of a child. Bodily impacts of the above complex approaches may be considered as combined since the differently structured motor-qualities-development exercises tend to activate a wide rangr of physiological adaptation processes in the body [3, 7]. This concept of the training process management has been broadly implemented in the Russian Federation and abroad. It should be noted, however, that the practical efficiency of this physical education methodology has proved to be among the lowest ones – both in terms of health-improvement and general physical culture aspects [3, 7].

If the school teacher opts for the above physical training methodology striving to train the pupils for the GTO qualification tests, he/she will be forced to use every method to “bring” the trainees up to the required standard of the GTO qualification tests. But in real practice children are very different in their natural predispositions to one or another form of muscular activity. This is the reason why the trials and tests of motor abilities falling within the natural endowments of the pupil will be relatively simple for him/her; and vice versa, the qualification tests of the motor qualities falling beyond the natural physical predispositions of the pupil will be difficult for latter. Knowing that, the teacher must tailor the individual training process to improve the performance of the individually non-preferred/ problematic tests by the pupils. Physical loads in this case will be individually focused on improving the least-developed physiological functions of the pupils with the relevant prudential limitations of the training effects on the body functions.

Training tasks offered to the pupils under the above methodology are normally very difficult and unpleasant for them. This is the reason why the pupils (and often their families too) are reluctant to accept these training courses as health improvement initiatives, and they rather consider it “mandatory sessions” and strive to avoid them more and more actively and inventively with age. Furthermore, it is important to make allowance for the recent studies that show that the tutorial actions making no account of the inborn predispositions to certain form of motor activity may lead to overloads and negative effects on the adaptive functions of the body and functional reserves of the vegetative regulation mechanisms of the blood circulation system [1, 3, 7]. It may be pertinent to mention that many people are often governed in their practical activity by the instinctive knowledge of the above. Herdsman, for example, with never force his cows gallop around the field since he knows for sure that it will be bad for their health. And no pet keeper will force his/her tomcat into long slow motion walks knowing fairly well that they are senseless and useless for the pet.

Therefore, the modern concepts of human biology, theoretical medicine, psychology, and theory and practice of physical education tend to recognize the importance of individually designed approaches for any human health improvement system. At this junction, the science offers high science-based technologies to stimulate the human physical potential being mobilized by detecting the individual predispositions of a child or adolescent to one or another form of sports/ physical culture and health-improvement practices [2, 4, 7]. It was further found that the highest success in developing the selected forms of motor qualities and health improvement activities is attained when the training loads are duly adjusted to the individual motor qualities development patterns of the trainee with due regard to his/her genetic predisposition to one or another form of muscular activity. The individualized selection of motor/ physical culture activity with due consideration for the individual predisposition of certain motor quality improvement models is viewed today as a prime basis for stimulating human physical culture and health improving activity [2, 7]. In this case the tutorial and training action is reasonably harmonized with the intrinsic neurodynamic processes in the trainees’ bodies and, hence, focused on the best developed physiological functions; this makes the training more pleasant for the trainees and gives good grounds to set high objectives and training loads in the process and attain well-expressed stimulating effects in mobilizing the psychophysiological potentials of the trainees. The mechanisms of physiological adaptation in this motor activity control model secures the notable training effect on the dominating motor quality and gives additional benefits due to the positive impacts on the “lagging-behind” individual physical qualities and their development process [3, 7].

The above method, therefore, gives the top priority to the individual preferences and intrinsic basic orientations and settings important for the physical culture process. It was based on the individualized approach to physical culture activity developed by Professors V.K. Bal’sevich and L.I. Lubysheva that the “individualized assessment scale” was offered to assess the physical training factors in application to the GTO qualification tests with due regard to the health-improvement aspects of physical culture and with focus on maximum physical efficiency [6]. The above individualized assessment system to estimate the physical training factors motivates the teacher to use every good practice to help the pupil prepare to and successfully pass the GTO qualification tests based on the science-based technologies of stimulated mobilization of the human body potential that are recognized by modern sports practitioners and trainers of the sport reserves, with due regard for the relevant health-improvement aspects.

Conclusions. It is of prime importance for a physical education teacher that the National GTO Physical Culture Complex is used as an efficient tool to promote the health-improvement aspects of physical culture and sports activity and step up the effectiveness of their potential mobilization. The GTO system shall be reasonably used to facilitate harmonized and comprehensive development of personality, foster patriotism and continuity of the physical culture and education process. These goals are attainable only based on individualized science-based technologies to support stimulated development of human physical potential; and it is through the implementation of these technologies in the school physical culture process that solid fundamentals of physical culture education will be formed and new ways to modernize the mass/ children’s and youth/ and university sports in government educational institutions will be found. The individualized physical fitness assessment system will encourage the sport practitioners to use individualized training technologies in the pupils’ preparation to the GTO qualification tests. When the teacher is limited by provisions of the traditional concepts of the Complex Physical Education Curriculum for the 1 to 11-graders, he/she has to give the top priority to forced “stretching” of the pupils’ skills to the valid standards of the physical education system. This traditional approach has been used for many decades and is still in use by some school physical education practitioners, but the practical effects of these basic physical culture concepts tend to be negatively assessed by the modern special scientific literature and mass media organizations.

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Corresponding author: gorodnichev@vlgafc.ru