Recommendations to Improve Primary School Physical Education: Classroom Teachers' Perspective

Abstract

The quality of physical education (PE) programs in primary schools has been questioned in the literature because of the difficulties that classroom teachers experience when teaching PE. The authors used a mixed-mode method to investigate teachers' insights into ways in which the quality of primary school PE can be improved. Questionnaire data were collected from 189 teachers in 38 randomly selected schools in New South Wales, Australia. Thirty-one of those teachers also volunteered to be involved in semistructured interviews. Results indicated that teachers were not adequately planning, implementing, assessing, reporting, or evaluating PE programs. Key recommendations that teachers described for improving PE related to school-level leadership, simple innovations, and specific professional learning needs.

Keywords:

• classroom teacher perspective
• physical education
• primary school