How prepared are Primary Pre-Service Teachers when teaching Physical Education? The study outline – Part one

For many, since 2002, government policies and funding have unintentionally negatively impacted primary Physical Education (PE) provision (Blair and Capel, 2008), seeing a removal of classroom teachers’ responsibility to deliver lessons in favour of outsourced providers (Jones and Green, 2017). Many argue this has de-skilled teachers (Duncombe et al., 2018), de-valued the subject (Randall et al., 2016) and limited opportunities for Primary Pre-Service Trainee Teachers (PPSTs) to put theory into practice (Randall, 2020), leaving them reliant upon their own prior experiences to deliver PE lessons (Morgan and Bourke, 2008). The impact and sustainability of reforms have been questioned, with critics suggesting outsourcing provides short-term gains (Griggs, 2016) that has subsequently created an unqualified PE workforce (Randall et al., 2016). These factors have impacted PPSTs’ Initial Teacher Education (ITE) experiences and their ability to develop their own PE preparedness.

This article, the first of five, focuses on findings from a Masters in Education thesis specifically concerning curriculum PE, which is defined as: ‘the planned and progressive learning that takes place in school curriculum timetabled time and is delivered to all pupils; this involves both learning to move and moving to learn’ (Association for Physical Education (AfPE), 2019). The study investigated undergraduate PPSTs’ perceptions of their preparedness to deliver curriculum PE.