Bentley Wood — A 68-page PE book with the OCR GCSE spec, key terms and body systems built in

The brief

Bentley Wood's PE department came to us for a book that would carry students through the OCR GCSE PE course — not just an exercise book, but one with the spec itself and the references students keep needing already printed inside.

The team was clear about what those references should be. Students arrive at revision time without a clear picture of what each paper actually assesses — how the marks split across J587/01, J587/02, J587/04 and J587/05, what's written, what's NEA, and what the weightings are. Students lose marks because they can't recall the cardiac values, the structure of blood vessels, or the three classes of lever quickly enough under exam pressure. And students hit a wall on subject-specific vocabulary — antagonistic, gastrocnemius, latissimus dorsi, osteoporosis, commercialisation — that they're expected to use accurately in extended answers.
The department wanted those three things — the spec map, the body systems references, and the key terminology — printed in every student's book so the whole class is working from the same starting point.

What we designed

Working with the Bentley Wood PE team, we built a 68-page Physical Education book with the department's most-used references baked in.

A school-branded cover with ruled lines for name, class, teacher and subject, and the Bentley Wood logo top-left.
A specification overview spread mapping the full OCR GCSE (9-1) PE course — J587/01 Physical factors affecting performance (applied anatomy and physiology, physical training; 30% of total GCSE, 60 marks, 1 hour), J587/02 Socio-cultural issues and sport psychology (30%, 60 marks, 1 hour), J587/04 Practical performances across three activities (30%, 60 marks), and J587/05 Analysis and evaluation of performance (10%, 20 marks, controlled-conditions written task) — so students see exactly what they're working toward across the two-year course.
A key terminology list alongside the spec — aerobic, anaerobic, anabolic steroids, antagonistic, aorta, articulating, capillaries, commercialisation, etiquette, exercise, gastrocnemius, ilium, latissimus dorsi, osteoporosis, sedentary, synovial, vein, vertebrae — covering the vocabulary students need to use accurately in extended responses.
A body systems reference spread covering the cardiovascular system (heart rate, stroke volume, cardiac output Q = HR × SV, with average resting values), the respiratory system (breathing rate, tidal volume, minute ventilation VE = TV × f, with the worked calculation that gives a resting minute ventilation of around 7.5 litres per minute), and a comparison of arteries, veins and capillaries — wall thickness, lumen size, valves, semi-permeable membranes — laid out side by side so students can spot the differences at a glance.
A levers diagram showing the three classes of lever with the fulcrum positioned correctly on each, so students have one clear reference to come back to whenever movement analysis comes up.
Lined writing pages throughout with title and date fields at the top of each, positioned so students can flip back to the spec map and body systems references mid-task.

The finished book

Every Bentley Wood PE student opens the same book onto the same specification map, the same key terminology and the same body systems references — the toolkit the department was previously printing on separate sheets is now permanently in the book students bring to every lesson, ready for two years of GCSE.