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

‘Like you forget the 
kids in your class who have no interest in competitive games and they 
love doing the orienteering and the challenges…’
(2 FGT Alannah 5). 
Physical education should be inclusive and include physical activity 
though not exclusively; 
‘So everyone is involved and it is a team effort.’
(2 FGT Michael 5) 
‘High level of involvement and activity’
(LE Mary 
JI). 
Although teachers were beginning to reconceptualise physical education, in the 
senior classes (fifth and sixth) children’s reconceptualisation at this level was slower to 
occur; 
‘…its [O&AA] absolutely brilliant, they really do love it… but then after it they 
still wanted to play PE. You know, they don’t look at it as PE. It’s not PE. No, real PE 
is a game, football and basketball’
(2 FGT Seán 6). It was pointed out that the children 
‘are programmed, they are programmed to ask that [for games]’ 
(2 FGT Michael 5).
The Principal went further to explain why the teachers and children were ‘programmed’ 
to expect games in their physical education lessons; 
It’d have been a lot of structured games being taught. In the upper end of the 
school teachers would have divided their classes into three groups, said right 
lads, you play football, you play basketball, and you guys there play hockey or 
rounders. You know without a lot of development, skill development in the 
lesson. So, and this is what children had come to expect. So it was relatively 
unplanned in terms of the lesson, and in terms of a progression in the school … 
well the children would certainly have perceived it as recreation time.
(IP) 
One teacher was adamant that teachers should try to manage children’s 
expectations and in so doing help with their and the children’s reconceptualisation of 
physical education; 
Do you know what I think it is important as well, is have your plans for your PE 
and do them, even if they go against the grain. The kids might say – oh teacher, 
we want games, we want games – in actual fact if you do orienteering and 
different challenges with them they will learn to adapt to those and enjoy those.
(2 FGT Alannah 5) 

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Teachers in the past would have abdicated their responsibility to pacify children 
demanding games. As a result of the PDP teachers were beginning to see that it was 
their responsibility to ensure children knew and understood what physical education is, 
and more importantly by teaching a quality programme of physical education children 
would come to understand physical education and its content. As well as teachers’ 
concept of physical education changing so too did their concept of O&AA and this can 
be summed up by the comments of Claire and Sophie (2 FGT 6); 
Sophie:
 … to be exposed to how to do it, just even one lesson, how to do this, how to do 
that, how to do the other, and they’ve done it, you’ve exposed them to it. 
Claire:
 At least you’d be a bit more competent in that than dance, we’ll say, and 
gymnastics. Two more strands we’re not covering really. So at least we can say, okay, 
we’re doing this and this and this.
However, not all teachers changed. One late career teacher who had embraced 
the initial PDP but had difficulty implementing the O&AA programme himself at stage 
2 but did not ask for support. He came under pressure from his class to provide games, 
and reverted to his comfort zone and gave into the class pressure to do games; 
‘Darragh 
didn’t do outdoor and adventure, he did games’
(FN 09.11.07). 
Children’s understanding of physical education continued to include discourses 
from health, physical activity, enjoyment, sport and physical education. When 
commenting on physical education and its association with health, children used the 
following descriptions; 
‘You do it so that you don’t have to sit in a stuffy classroom’
(1 
FGC Girl 4). 
‘It gives you an alternative to just sitting inside all day’
(1 FGC Boy 6). 
‘It’s something that you do exercises, and its good for your heart’
(1 FGC Girl 1).
Replicating what was found in the initial interview – understanding the environment - 
children’s connotation of physical activity and physical education still got confused, 
with some children mistaking free play for physical education; 
‘I do PE at home, I do 
gymnastics’
(1 FGC Girl 1). 
‘I bounce on my trampoline’
(1 FCG Boy 1). Many of the 
children recognised that physical activity was an aspect of physical education; 
‘It’s 
something where you run around’
(1 FGC Boy 5). 
‘Running around’
(1 FGC Girl 2 and 
3, Boy 2). Nevertheless, this could be addressed in future and further professional 
development programmes with the teachers or another programme aimed solely at the 
children. Again at stage 2 of the PDP, when asked what is physical education, games 
and other sports did not feature to the same extent, when asked to explain what physical 

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education was. It was mainly the boys from third and fifth class who said that they 
would like physical education to consist of games rather than describing physical 
education as games; 
‘I think PE should be fun and games. Like …basketball, hockey, 
soccer, rugby, rounders’
(2 FGC Boy 3).
‘Well I just prefer football and, or Gaelic or 
rugby’
(2 FGC Boy 5). Children did not mention that other strands such as dance (other 
than 2 girls mentioning Irish dancing), athletics or gymnastics were physical education 
and some felt that O&AA wasn’t ‘real’ physical education, even though they enjoyed 
the O&AA; 
‘…but sometimes it doesn’t feel like PE, because PE, you’re normally just 
running around and doing football and stuff’
(2 FGC Girl 4). 
‘Like you are reading 
maps and people wouldn’t really say that reading maps is PE’
(2 FGC Girl 6). Younger 
children were sure O&AA was physical education because they did it during their 
physical education time; 
‘Because we do it at PE time, and if we didn’t do it at PE time 
it wouldn’t be PE’
(2 FGC Girl 1). 
The children echoed the teachers’ responses on how the unit of work should be 
presented week to week. Children from all classes felt that PE would be boring if it was 
the same every week and that physical education was supposed to be fun; 
‘I think it’s 
better to do different things … sometimes you get bored of doing the same thing over 
and over again’
(1 FGC Girl 5).
‘I think you should do something different every week’ 
(1 FGC Girl 3).
‘It’s supposed to be fun like’
(1 FGC Girl 5).
‘Sometimes our teacher 
does like, every single week she does, like nearly the same thing … it’s a bit like, getting 
boring’
(1 FGC Girl 4). Even though children only did O&AA for six weeks, they got 
the impression that they were doing these lessons all the time and thought that it would 
be better of the lessons could be more varied, and O&AA done every second or third 
week. Yet they had failed to notice their physical education programme which 
consisted of weeks of games at various stages throughout year, prior to the PDP, was 
not very varied.