The PAP is a digital written project worth 20% of your overall Leaving Certificate grade. It will take place over an 8-10 week period from early October to mid-December and will require approximately 20 to 25 hours of work (but expect longer). The majority of written work should take place during school hours, depending on whether there are computers available. With regards to the practical element of the project, testing and data collection should happen during class time but you will be expected to work on your own training programmes outside of school hours.

The total word count of the digital booklet is 1,600 words. Each section (A, B and C) will be supported with a short video that will be edited using movie-making software. The total time of the 3 videos combined will be no more than 4 mins long. Videos must be submitted in MP4 format. This guide will bring you through the different stages of the project.

The first step involved in the PAP is working with your class teacher to develop an appropriate timeline in which you will complete your work. Your teacher should present you with a template or plan in order to guide you through the process. Don’t be fooled, there is a lot of work involved in the PAP so it's vital you take note of the deadlines before you begin and stick to them (don't forget to note any holidays or school closure days happening throughout this timeframe).

Trust me, you will not want to have any last-minute project work hanging over you, especially as Christmas exams and mocks creep up on you. Below is a sample timeline that you may use to plan your work:

Before you begin the PAP, you will need to choose a physical activity to work with. You must choose a competitive sport which has a recognised NGB. If you are unsure about this, you can ask your teacher or search for your activity here: https://www.sportireland.ie/national-governing-bodies/ngb-contact-finder.

You can choose to complete the PAP in one of the following roles:

Your teacher will let you know the three physical activity choices that are available for the Performance Assessment (PA). It is highly recommended that you decide on the sport you will use for your PA prior to carrying out the PAP. This is because in the PA, you will be graded on your ability to perform a skill from your chosen sport. For example, if you would rate yourself a highly skilled footballer, do not choose soccer for the PAP. Instead, save it for the PA and choose another activity. It’s important to note also that the activity must come from a different physical activity area. For example, hurling and soccer both come under the games strand so therefore only one of the two can be chosen for the PAP and the PA must come from another strand such as athletics or personal health and exercise. See the LCPE specification (page 12) for more details (image below).

After choosing your physical activity, you must then carry out a needs analysis. A needs analysis is where you analyse your sport and identify the key components which are required for optimal performance. You should choose a broad range of components to research such as:

Keep a note of these in a journal or online document and find reference material to support why each component is important to your activity, e.g. online articles, journals, textbooks, etc.

Once the PAP window opens, you may begin your testing. Using the information gained from your needs analysis you will design a fitness battery test for your chosen activity and carry out a series of testing. Your teacher will supervise the testing during practical lessons. Be sure that adequate equipment is available for you to carry out your testing.

Short 10-20 second snippets of each test will suffice as your edited video will only be approximately 1 minute long for Section A. Other methods of analysis may also be included as text files in the images section such as: 

Your teacher will talk you through guidelines and tips on how to gather video footage effectively. Be smart and use your common sense, i.e. no students/unnecessary equipment in the background, appropriate angles and lighting, etc.

The performance analysis write-up should be approximately 400 words and the following information should be included:

You should then discuss the key findings of your needs analysis using supporting references from various sources. The results of all testing should be displayed in a table and stored in the images section below the text. Your results must be compared to the normative data. See the sample table below:

Each image used must be labelled appropriately, e.g. Fig.1, and referred to in the write-up. The purpose of Section A is to explore the results of your testing and identify your key strengths within your performance. Weaker areas should not be discussed in this section but can be listed as ‘areas of concern’ in the text or on your table. Your results will be used to identify your four performance goals in Section B.

Section B is where most of the marks are awarded but you have a lot of information to cover in just 800 words. That’s approximately 200 words for each performance goal so you must be clear and concise.

On comparing your results to the normative data, you will find areas that need improvement in your performance. Within Section B, you will use the SMART strategy to develop four different goals from various areas of your performance. Note that each performance goal must be unique and can only be explored if there is evidence of testing in Section A. For example, you may not choose to work on agility and coordination as two separate goals as they are both PRF components. Here is some advice and important things to note for this section:

Before you begin, you will need to return to the testing carried out in Section A and retest (all tests from Section A must be retested, not just the tests used for your performance goals). The examiner wants to see you identify your unintended outcomes, i.e. areas of your performance that improved unexpectedly from carrying out your 4 training programmes, for example, maybe you lost/gained weight unintentionally from cardio training which is a factor influencing BMI results. Similarly, you may have gained muscle mass from carrying out weight training to improve power, etc.

You may use the same table from Section A to display your results or you can simply refer back to this table, e.g. see Fig.1 in Section A. You may also add a section on your table for the relevance of this test to your chosen sport if you wish (be sure to always refer back to testing carried out in week 1). Images can be tables/graphs or body profile images, etc. For video, record a snippet of you completing each test and carry out the test in your own time to learn your results.

Here's a checklist you can use for Section C:

Overall coherence relates to the overall preparation, planning, implementation and completion of the Physical Activity Project. In this section, you need to include full references for all sources cited in your report. You should also include details of additional sources of information that you have consulted but have not cited in your report.

16 marks are going for the overall coherence and clarity of your project (including marks for your supporting references and bibliography). Here is some advice on approaching this section:

Best of luck! You've got this.