Teaching outdoor and adventure activities: an investigation of a primary school physical education professional development p

Contextual Issues 
Timetabling and the organisation of resources are the main contextual issues. The same 
classes groups do not have physical education lessons in succession which would 
alleviate the problem of each teacher having to collect, set up and return equipment for 
every lesson. The geography of the school in relation to the location of classes, the 
proximity of yards, GP Hall and three equipment stores is also an issue that needs to be 
addressed. The lack of toilets in close proximity to the GP Hall causes problems for 
teachers, mainly those with junior classes. 
Limitations 
Almost a third of teachers’ responses were absent, not allowing an accurate picture of 
the teacher demographics to emerge. The use of this questionnaire highlighted the 
limitations of questionnaires for the overall study. Many of the responses given in the 
questionnaires were very different to the responses given by teachers in the interviews 
and from the observations made. In this phase of the study the focus group interviews 

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provided a more accurate picture of the practices and perspectives of the teachers to 
physical education.
Implications and Recommendations
The strand chosen to support first, following analysis of both the interview and 
questionnaire data, was outdoor and adventure activities. This strand had been taught 
by only one teacher and therefore had not been experienced by either teachers or 
children. This was also identified by teachers as an area in which they lacked 
confidence and subject knowledge.
According to the Primary School Sports Initiative (Houses of the Oireachtas 
Joint Committee on Education and Science, 2005) it is important at all times that class 
teachers’ fears are allayed about teaching physical education and they should be 
educated that large parts of the curriculum are ‘doable’ which do not require specialist 
knowledge. Hardman and Marshall (2005) and Wright (2002) support this idea pointing 
out that if pre-service and in-service programmes in physical education for primary 
school teachers were given more time, funding and recognition then the need for 
specialist physical education teachers in primary schools may not be an issue. While 
designing the professional development programme it will be vital to ensure the strand 
is ‘doable’ by all teachers as the likelihood will be greater that they will continue to 
teach this ‘new’ strand (Keay & Spence, 2010; Talbot, 2008). From the observations 
and data collection process it is evident, that each teacher’s circumstances is very 
different, even though some are teaching the same class level and all of them are 
teaching in the same school with the same facilities and equipment. This emphasised 
the importance of contextualisation for the teacher (Fullan, 2001), not just the context of 
the school but more importantly the context of their own class (Lyon, Wylie & Goe, 
2006).
The recommendations from the findings are; increasing teachers’ knowledge of 
physical education as a subject and also the subject knowledge content required to 
teach it effectively (Petrie, 2009; Siedentop, 2002) both of which are prerequisites to 
quality physical education provision; establish a protocol regarding equipment 
management; ensure timetabling of classes is carried out with all teachers input which 
may necessitate organisational change (Guskey, 2002b); devise a physical education 
policy and school plan with staff input; build on the positives that exist in the school 
and amongst staff ; compilation of resources necessary for strand implementation and 

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establish the support methods which will need to be employed with each teacher, which 
will form the basis of the planned professional development programme (Craft, 2000; 
Keay & Spence, 2010).