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

Content knowledge
.
From interactions with teachers, primarily through the 
focus groups but also incidentally during the unit of work, it could be seen that content 
knowledge at stage 1, was beginning to develop and with this knowledge came 
confidence; 
First lesson until, up until now, 10 times better than they were in the first lesson 
because it’s only through experience I think that you actually do a good lesson. 
As regards the first one I wasn’t as competent as I thought because I hadn’t a 
clue whereas now I’ll be fairly confident to take them out. You know enough now 
to do a bit.
(1 FGT Simon 3)
 
So it’s in the confidence in teaching it, although I have the interest it’s just the 
confidence. And that’s where the extra, little, support is great because you can 
have whatever you have on paper but until you see it being taught.
(1 FGT 
Natalie1)
 
I’d be happy to do it now, yeah … I’d be much more comfortable with it; those 
four lessons anyway, yeah. Again, the two lessons I haven’t taught I would be a 
bit iffy about though.
(1 FGT Cathal 3) 
Teachers like Simon, who had not taught a lesson in O&AA, still lacked 
confidence. By week three of the PDP, this increase in confidence meant that over a 

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third of the teachers wanted to team teach or teach themselves with me close by to offer 
support if necessary. Teachers pointed to O&AA requiring technical language and 
specific knowledge which they may not have had before the PDP. The nature of 
O&AA also required knowledge and confidence in these areas to ensure quality lessons 
are provided to the children.
At the end of stage 1 and the O&AA unit, teachers were still a little confused as 
to what O&AA in the primary school represented. They still had some preconceived 
ideas about O&AA being linked to the notion of an outdoor environment such as a 
national park or an outdoor and adventure centre, the idea for most being O&AA takes 
place in the ‘wild’
; ‘I thought it was much more adventurous….I would probably be 
thinking of going up mountains…’
(1 FGT Moira 1). This is not to say that the O&AA 
strand does not include aspects of ‘off-site’ activities which may be undertaken by 
teachers and children in parks and adventure centres. As teachers were slowly coming 
to terms with the content knowledge for their own class group they began to ask 
questions about the content for other class groups. As each group of teachers were 
spoken to in isolation from the other class teachers during interview/discussion, teachers 
never saw or heard what other classes were doing and how their lesson content fed into 
the overall curriculum. Teachers questioned the O&AA content other teachers were 
teaching, to ascertain whether they were all teaching the same thing – as happened with 
the schools games programme. This discussion showed how teachers were beginning to 
reflect on the content and the overall programme and not just their lessons. It also 
pointed to an emerging barrier – the PDP was too context focussed. If teachers had 
different classes the following year where O&AA content was very different they would 
require the continuing support to add to their content knowledge as the fear would be 
that they would teach the same content to every class without consideration of 
continuity or progression of learning. Future PDPs would need to find the balance 
between contextualised and general support, in order for teachers to at the very least 
acknowledge how each classes lesson content aligned with the full programme and 
curriculum content. 
At stage 2 of the PDP the provision of resources, materials, modelling of lessons 
and other minor forms of support continued to allow teachers to build on their content 
knowledge of activities and ideas and encouraged them to use already developed 
classroom pedagogical strategies in the physical education context. Teachers were now 
familiar with the various strands units of O&AA and also how to include these strand 

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units in a lesson; 
‘I found that there was much more variety to it than I thought to begin 
with…I just thought it was map reading and following controls...’ 
(2 FGT Cathal 3). 
‘Activities outside, problem solving…challenging them…obviously orienteering’
(2 
FGT Miriam 5).
‘There is orienteering…working together …communicating…a lot of 
co-operation involved
(2 FGT Karen 4). 
‘It’s intellectual challenge mixed with physical, 
actually running, finding things, recording, so there’s a little bit of everything, 
teamwork’
(2 FGT Sophie 6).
‘Didn’t know what orienteering really was. I’ve never 
done it before. I think it’s great like you know’
(2 FGT Seán 6).
‘I found that it was 
much broader than what I actually thought outdoor adventure was. I had a much more 
limited view of it’
(2 FGT Moira 3). 
During the focus groups, at stage 2, the infant teachers were able to compile a 
list of all the aspects of the strand including treasure hunts, scavenger hunts, games, fun 
with the environment, nature walks, walking with a purpose and orienteering that 
constitute O&AA. When asked what O&AA was, there was a predominance of 
responses from senior teachers, centred on the skill of orienteering, with social skills 
such as teamwork and communication featuring strongly.
 
Related to this, about half way through the unit of work I began to notice that 
teachers were focussing on the orienteering aspects of the lessons and some of the 
teachers of senior classes were leaving out the challenge activities at the start and end of 
the lesson. Many of the teachers interviewed discussed a lack of knowledge or lack of 
confidence with the use of technical language associated with O&AA such as ‘control 
card’, ‘orientate’, and names of pieces of equipment such as ‘bull ring’ and ‘hula hut’ 
for example. Jack expressed his views on the language; 
I suppose it compares to kind of a person’s first faring into IT. I mean there is 
technical jargon there and things you just have to learn and you can get away 
with a level of ignorance... but you really need to know your stuff; you have to 
have a certain base-level of good solid knowledge for orienteering.
(2 FGT Jack 
4)
Cathal (fourth class teacher) felt that he had difficulty explaining the activity, 
and although he knew the content, he had difficulty conveying the activity instructions 
to the children as fluently as the facilitator; 
‘… he commented to me after I told the 
children what to do, and sent them off, about – you just say that off pat, I could never 
get all of that’
(FN 06.11.07). One teacher noted that the teachers should use the 
language of the subject also to reinforce it with the children; 

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I think another important thing that has just struck me is when you are doing 
your Outdoor and Adventure, call it Outdoor and Adventure and call it 
scavenger hunt and call it orienteering. And say, we are doing orienteering this 
week or we are doing… As opposed to just setting them up doing it and then they 
don’t even know what they did.
(2 FGT Alannah 5) 
Teachers had not been using the language of physical education, the descriptive 
language which describes the strands of the curriculum and the strand units, when 
teaching. Within the school, whatever was being carried out at physical education class 
time was known as physical education or PE. This in itself led to the limited view 
teachers and children had of physical education. This became obvious through the 
teaching of O&AA where teachers felt they needed more help in the area of technical 
language of O&AA and organisational strategies for O&AA activities. The lesson 
observations during stage 2, indicated that teachers were coping very well with the 
technical language and organisational strategies, due to the increase in their content 
knowledge; 
‘Excellent explaining – children active- modified activity so children had 
lots of goes as time for activity was too short…..good organisation of equipment for 
tidying’
(LO Eileen 3).
‘Equipment very well organised…clear instructions, regular 
questioning, obvious learning’
(LO Eve 3
). ‘Good management – explained in class.
Very organised, very thorough…..children not afraid to ask - teacher took two girls and 
explained walking them through the activity’
(LO Miriam 5). ‘
Children did all 
organisation under teacher direction’
(LO Amanda 1).
‘All activities explained clearly 
– what was required and how done. Organised equipment, out and in, in a very 
methodical fashion’
(LO Alannah 5).