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

Facilities and equipment.
Lack of adequate facilities and equipment are and 
still seem to be the main barriers according to teachers in the delivery of the physical 
education curriculum and also tends to be the most difficult barriers to overcome – 
where can a teacher teach their physical education programme with the Irish climate of 
uncertainty, especially gymnastics and dance, when they have no indoor facility?
Deenihan (1990) concluded that ‘many children are experiencing very little physical 
education in our primary schools because of lack of basic facilities and resources’ (p. 
10). Little change was reported from his earlier findings (Deenihan, 2007) in that 
inadequate facilities and equipment was the main barrier to the provision of physical 
education in schools. The INTO (Irish National Teachers' Organisation, 2007) reported 
that when they asked the delegates (N=300) who attended their consultative conference 
on education in 2006 about their facilities for teaching physical education, 31.6% did 
not have a hall, 11.8% did not have a suitably surfaced yard, 60.7% did not have a 
general purpose (GP) hall and 21.3% did not have a playing field. Principals in primary 
schools surveyed by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) (Fahey et al., 
2005) were generally dissatisfied with the facilities for sport in their schools. Two 
thirds (N=137) said they were ‘not at all adequate’ (p. 61) but findings suggested that 
principals were more concerned about indoor than outdoor facilities. Darmody and 
colleagues (2010) in their study examining school design and environments reported 
that many schools have access to outdoor space for the teaching of physical education 
but are restricted within their programmes due to the lack of access to indoor space.
Woods and colleagues (2010) noted that 81% (N=47) of primary principals reported not 
having access to an indoor multi-purpose hall on-site for the purpose of teaching 

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physical education, with almost one in every two (45%) principals feeling that their 
physical education and sports facilities were ‘not at all adequate’ (p. 43). Compared 
with the rest of the world Ireland is no worse off, with 37% of countries reporting 
dissatisfaction with the quality of their facilities and 50% indicating that the quality of 
provision is “limited/insufficient” (Hardman & Marshall, 2009).
Many schools have no facilities and there are instances where general-purpose 
rooms have been provided but have been converted into classrooms because of the 
pressure for space to teach the non-physical education element of the curriculum 
(Houses of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Science, 2005). According 
to the Department of Education and Science Planning and Building Unit (2007)
the 
provision of a GP room catering primarily for the teaching and learning of physical 
education (p. 22) is considered within the design brief for new schools and or 
renovations/extensions to school building projects. The GP room, however, may also 
be used for other curricular subjects, school assemblies and other functions requiring a 
large assembly area. The general purpose room store should open directly off the GP 
room and is for physical education equipment (p. 23). However, due to government 
cutbacks and slow progress being made with regard to school extensions and building 
programmes, many schools have had to adapt their GP hall for alternative purposes. In 
most instances this is due to an increase in pupil numbers and a lack of classrooms to 
accommodate them in. Where schools are under tremendous pressure it is easy to 
understand providing an extra classroom before a physical education hall at that 
moment may seem the most practical one. Taking decisions like this again reduce the 
status of physical education as a subject and make it less important than all other 
subjects on the curriculum. It also reduces opportunities for teachers to teach physical 
education and thus their opportunity to develop as teachers of physical education is 
hampered. 
In 2002, the physical education grant, a nominal grant from the Department of 
Education and Science, to primary schools for the purchase of equipment was 
discontinued due to government financial cutbacks. This grant at least enabled schools 
to invest to an extent in physical education resources. Its abolition shows the 
Government’s continued disinterest in supporting physical education. A grant scheme 
for playground and physical education equipment in primary schools was provided in 
2010 in a once off allowance, where primary schools could avail of €1,000 per school 
and €10 per capita to meet requirements arising in respect of playground and physical 

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education equipment (Department of Education and Skills School Building Unit, 2010).
Many schools have come to depend on parents’ and children’s fundraising efforts as 
well as ‘token-collecting’ from local supermarket initiatives to supply the materials 
required, to implement, the physical education curriculum. The National Taskforce on 
Obesity (2005) included among its recommendations that the Department of Education 
and Science should prioritise the provision and maintenance of physical education and 
physical activity facilities to address the issue of equity and access in all schools. This 
echoes the reports by the ESRI (Fahey et al., 2005) which found that facilities, 
especially those in primary schools need to be improved, particularly those necessary to 
indoor activities.
There has not been a period of significant funding in physical education.
Investment is necessary at primary level before much of the curriculum can be fully 
implemented. There is little evidence to suggest that children are experiencing quality 
programmes of physical education as the research to demonstrate accurately the level or 
quality of provision of physical education programmes at all levels of the primary 
school is absent. Additionally there are no inspectors specifically for primary physical 
education (compared to two, currently, at second level) and therefore there are no 
accurate reflections or reports at Department of Education and Skills level as to the 
teaching of the subject.