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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.
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