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

partnerships between Colleges of Education and schools with a view to providing a 
combination of on-site, professional development and coursework for teachers. This 

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could be done by funding a number of teachers each year to undertake specialist 
education in physical education, so that they may adopt a leadership role and assist in 
their school in developing and implementing a school professional development plan for 
physical education.
For Changes in Teaching to Happen, Organisational Changes are Necessary
The success or otherwise of many professional development programmes has 
depended on the support provided by the school, and its management (Fullan, 2001; 
Guskey, 2000; Sparkes, 1996). Physical education is a complex subject comprising of 
very different strands. Its nature and purpose are constantly being discussed in many 
fora and can be linked with changes in society. The teachers in this study had 
experienced national in-service in all aspects of the curriculum over six years, fitting in 
with the current national reform agenda (Sugrue et al., 2001). National in-service 
focussed on breadth within subjects and these teachers were under immense pressure 
trying to consolidate on one subject, build on another and have further professional 
development on a third all while teaching and dealing with many other school related 
issues. A challenge for the primary school sector is how to deal with multiple PDPs 
simultaneously (Timperley et al., 2007; Wylie, 2007). On completion of this study, this 
concern of teachers moving to the next stage of curricular reform assuming that their 
physical education professional development was complete, a process they had become 
accustomed to with national in-service, was present. Teachers, following stage 2 of the 
PDP, recognised their pedagogical content knowledge deficiencies in the other strand 
areas of physical education and requested and actively pursued further support in other 
strand areas of the physical education curriculum, negating this concern. It should be 
noted that due to the short term nature of the PDP teachers may return to old practices 
when they move to another strand, which has not been covered by the PDP, as was 
reported by Tannehill and colleagues (2007) in their research.
Similar to Betchel and O’ Sullivan’s (2006) findings the Principal was key to the 
change process. The findings in this study suggest that an important influence on 
teachers’ engagement in the PDP was the school’s commitment to this initiative and the 
driving force of the Principal. This was in sharp contrast to international findings where 
low levels of principal support for staff professional development were recorded 
(Barroso et al., 2005; Hardman & Marshall, 2009; Kirk, 2006).

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The literature supports contextualised professional development for schools, but 
there is little work published on variation within a school or contextualisation in classes, 
with teachers and children or even where or when lessons are scheduled. All of these 
issues can impact a PDP. Throughout the PDP process organisational changes had to be 
made and these were defining factors in the programme’s success. These changes 
included simple modifications to i) how the equipment was accessed, ii) where it was 
stored, and iii) how and when physical education classes were timetabled. Each of these 
organisational changes had a positive effect on how physical education was taught to 
the children. Yet these structural changes are not addressed in many, if any, 
professional development programmes or workshops. In many of the reviews on 
effective professional development there are references to organisational support and 
change as being critical to the success of professional development interventions, 
however what is meant by organisational change is unclear. As can be seen from this 
study organisational change was very practical and more than just Principal support.
Organisational changes, which were not addressed during the PDP, caused barriers to 
effective teaching, for example, intrusions into teachers’ lessons by parents, use of 
equipment and facilities by external providers and intrusions from other activities which 
take over the indoor facilities which were required for physical education lessons.
Change and organisational change needs to be monitored and protected.
Organisational change is complex, though necessary, for teacher change to 
happen. In order for it to be effective future professional development models should 
examine organisational change from the perspective of physical change (resources, 
equipment and facilities) and policy change (time-tabling, school ethos, physical 
education programme planning, and teacher induction). To implement any necessary 
organisational change requires a collective participation (Garet et al, 2001) of Principal, 
staff, parents, children and the school’s Board of Management.