O primeiro passo para uma nova realidade

Abstract

This Professional Internship Report was developed within the Master's Degree in Teaching Physical Education in Basic and Secondary Education at the Faculty of Sport of the University of Porto and aims to describe, analyse, and critically reflect on the professional learning process undertaken during the 2025/2026 academic year at D. Dinis Basic and Secondary School, in Santo Tirso. The supervised teaching practice provided a privileged opportunity to engage with the realities of the teaching profession, allowing the knowledge acquired throughout academic training to be articulated with the concrete and often unpredictable demands of the school context. The report presents the personal and institutional contexts of the internship and analyses the different dimensions of pedagogical intervention, with particular emphasis on teaching planning, implementation, and assessment, as well as instruction, classroom management, discipline, and the development of a positive learning climate. Participation in school activities and School Sport also contributed to a broader understanding of the teaching profession beyond the boundaries of the Physical Education lesson. Systematic reflection on the experiences encountered, the difficulties faced, the decisions made, and the progressive reconstruction of practice became a central element of professional development. As part of the research component, an exploratory study was conducted with an 11th-grade class to analyse differences in students' motivation before and after an Athletics unit organised according to characteristics of the Sport Education Model. The findings showed favourable changes in some motivational indicators and positive student perceptions of features such as stable team affiliation, responsibility, and the performance of different roles. However, given the small sample size, the absence of a control group, the short duration of the intervention, and limitations associated with the instrument used, these findings should be interpreted cautiously and do not support a causal relationship between the model and the observed changes. Overall, the internship represented a progressive process of professional identity construction, characterised by a transition from a predominantly knowledge-application-oriented perspective towards a more reflective, contextualised, and responsible understanding of teaching and of the role of the Physical Education teacher.