Traditional and contemporary approaches to career-long professional learning: a primary physical education journey in Scotland

Abstract

With career-long professional learning increasingly seen as a significant element of teacher education, this paper proposes that there is a need to acknowledge the complex nature of the professional learning process. The paper explores lessons learnt from over a decade of professional learning efforts by the Developmental Physical Education Group at The University of Edinburgh. With the group's traditional initial continuing professional development efforts having limited impact on teachers' practice, the paper considers how more recent efforts have refocused on a longer term, participative and situated approach that appears to be having significantly more influence on teachers as professional learners.

Keywords:

• career-long professional learning
• primary physical education
• Scotland
• capacity building
• situated learning

Notes

1 In Scotland, the term CLPL has recently replaced continuing professional development (CPD) in government publications and will be used throughout the paper.

2 Active Schools coordinators are members of a national network of staff working across Scotland to provide children and young people with opportunities to participate in sport before, during and after school (sportscotland, 2013). The Active Schools Programme is managed by sportscotland, the national agency for sport in Scotland.