Teachers’ Rules, Routines, and Expectations Prior to and Following the Implementation of the National Curriculum for Physical Education

Previous teacher effectiveness research has indicated that teachers who implement clear rules, routines, and performance expectations achieve more in terms of pupil learning (Sanford et al., 1983). One purpose of this study was to describe the rules established, routines employed, and expectations conveyed by a sample of British physical education teachers. The second purpose of the study was to discover whether or not the introduction of the National Curriculum for Physical Education (NCPE) in England and Wales led to changes in these managerial structures. Participants were 20 physical education teachers employed in the five secondary schools of one English town. During the summer term before the NCPE was introduced (1992) and two years after the NCPE was implemented (1994) two lessons taught by each teacher were videotaped. Lessons were coded with a modified version of Siedentop’ and Fink's (1987) Rules, Routines, and Expectations (RRE) instrument, a systematic observation instrument designed to record rules, routines, and expectations as they occur. Analysis involved comparing the type and number of rules, routines, and expectations observed during each summer term. In addition, the rates per five minutes that teachers used routines and conveyed expectations were computed for each lesson. These data were entered into a Statistical Analysis System (SAS) programme and descriptive statistics were computed across all 40 lessons for each summer term. Comparisons of how frequently teachers used routines or conveyed expectations during the two summer terms were made by employing independent t‐tests. Results indicated that none of the teachers employed rules either before or after the introduction of the NCPE. There were no major differences between the type and number of routines and expectations observed during the two summer terms. All 20 teachers employed stopping activity, equipment, gathering, organising, and starting activity routines during both observational periods. All 20 teachers also conveyed the expectation that pupils should learn skills and strategies and the majority conveyed the expectations that pupils should give maximum effort, pay attention, be on‐task, and be safe during both summer terms. These routines and expectations formed the core of each teacher's managerial system. There were no significant differences between the rates at which teachers employed routines or conveyed expectations during the two summer terms. The most frequently used routines were starting, activity, organising, and equipment. The most frequently conveyed expectation was that pupils should learn. These data support those who argue that invariably, the top‐down model of curriculum development seen in the introduction of the NCPE will make little difference to instructional practice.

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Matthew D. Curtner‐Smith

Matthew Curtner‐Smith and John Todorovich are with the University of Alabama, USA, Simon Lacon is with the University of Memphis, USA and Iain Kerr is an Advisor in Somerset, UK.