Abstract
Objective: to ascertain the influence of the updated Physical Education syllabus in the context of forming social health of secondary school students, as well as motivation of schoolchildren for Physical Education classes. Material: 457 school students (230 females and 227 males) of the 6th and 7th grades (aged 12-13) from different regions of Ukraine were respondents of the survey. Method: observation, interviews and the authors’ questionnaires (‘Interest in Physical Education’with the use of customized tests by M. Ginzburg (Zaniuk, 2002), questionnaires ‘value orientations’ by M. Rokeach (Rozov, 2005), ‘Orientation towards Increasing Social Health of a Person’, as well as a questionnaire on the need of accomplishments by Yu. Orlov and Reyzas Assertiveness Schedule (Big Encyclopedia of Psychological Tests, 2007).Results: It was discovered that in 2008-2009 only 23.7% of schoolchildren liked physical education classes. Within this period of time, 18.5% of school students had a high level of orientation towards improving their own social health. The corrections made in 2012 to Physical Education syllabus contributed to an increase in the number of school students with a high level of motivation for Physical Education classes(+ 41.7%), as well as the number of students who had a high level of orientation towards improving their own social health (+23.3%). Positive changes were also recorded after the improvement of Physical Education syllabus in 2017 (under conditions of Physical Education reformation in Ukraine). The number of schoolchildren with a high level of motivation for Physical Education classes increased by 10.5% compared with the results recorded in 2012-2016. The number of students aimed at improving their own state of social health increased by 17.1%.The content of Physical Education syllabus of years 2012 and 2017 has significant advantages over the syllabus of the Soviet times in the context of developing students’ desire to be engaged in Physical Education on the whole and improve their own level of social health in particular. It is characterized by the improvement of the system of assessing schoolchildren’s achievements in physical fitness, the option to increase the amount of time devoted to students’ mastering various kinds of sports that are of particular interest to them, and the focus on providing schoolchildren with key life competencies.