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

Physical education professional development provision in Ireland.
The 
primary curriculum support program (PCSP) was established in 1998 prior to launch of 
the curriculum. The stated function of the PCSP was ‘to mediate curriculum vis-à-vis 
schools and teachers to enable them to implement the curriculum’ (Murchan, Loxley, 
Johnston, Quinn & Fitzgerald, 2005, p. 15). The first task of the PCSP was to facilitate 
professional development of school staff through national in-service which consisted of 
seminars and school-based planning days. The PCSP tutors were seconded for a two 

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year period to facilitate a professional development programme for teachers. These in-
service seminars provided an introduction to the content and methodologies of each 
curriculum area. This points to subject and curriculum centred approach rather than a 
teacher centred approach, which goes against the characteristics outlined previously of 
both effective professional development and effective physical education professional 
development. Physical education was mediated over a two year period beginning in 
September 2004 and finishing in June 2006. During the first year teachers were 
provided with support in the strands of aquatics, games and outdoor and adventure 
activities. In the second year gymnastics, athletics and dance were introduced. The 
seminars introduced the key methods, context and methodologies for the subject as 
outlined in the curriculum. They were also a forum for experiential learning, teacher 
dialogue and the initiation of whole school planning for the implementation of the 
curriculum. Each subject was allocated two seminar days followed by two planning 
days over the two years. Given that the total contact time with teachers for all six 
strands of the physical education curriculum was just over ten hours (compared to the 
130 hours which the tutors had spent on content and methodology (Murphy, 2007)), 
these seminar days only constituted the beginning of a process whereby schools 
introduce and begin to implement curricular change. The seminars were held off site 
for whole school staffs allowing for little or no contextual impact, and in the case of 
teachers there was very little, if any, breakdown of content particular to each class.
Teachers were given an overview of the physical education strands and some sample 
lessons were carried out with the participants. The style of professional development of 
the in-service is in contrast to that preferred in the literature, however, feedback from 
teachers at the time was favourable (De Paor, 2007; Murchan et al., 2005; Murphy, 
2007; Seoighe, 2005). Further research needs to be carried out to establish the impact 
of the national in-service on the teaching of physical education a number of years later. 
The PCSP developed a web site (www.pcsp.ie) that provided teachers, parents and 
boards of management details of the organisation of professional development support 
and the content of seminars for all subject areas. The web site also provided templates 
for planning and exemplars of methodologies that could be downloaded and used in 
school and classroom context. The physical education section of the PCSP website was 
the only subject area to contain resource materials for the teaching of each of the 
strands, for each class. Research is also needed to assess the level of support that these 
curriculum specific on-line resources provide to teachers. 

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An essential component of the PCSP was the Regional Curriculum Support 
Service or Cuiditheoirí Service (RCSS). Cuiditheoirí (Irish for helper) followed on 
from the PCSP personnel who were involved in national in-service, these personnel 
offered their services to schools in a variety of ways including visiting schools and 
advising teachers on the implementation of particular areas of curriculum strands. They 
provided teachers with useful sources of information in relation to resources and 
teaching materials and they facilitated networking between schools. They provided 
support for whole school and classroom planning and organized additional in-service 
courses for teachers through the Education Centre Network. The support service 
modelled best practice, however the number of trained personnel had been reduced 
(N=14) and provision of support for approximately 26,000 teachers in physical 
education was worrying in terms of supporting real change in the teaching practices of 
teachers at a national level (Murphy, 2007). Hustler and colleagues (2003) sampled a 
large number of teachers in England and although these teachers were satisfied with 
professional development they were critical of the ‘one size fits all’ nature of the 
professional development provision. This ‘one size fits all’ type of professional 
development was the model used during the roll out of national in-service of The 
Primary Curriculum (Government of Ireland, 1999a) and the courses rarely related to 
the context to which the teachers were returning.
The School Development Planning Support (SDPS) initiative was established in 
1999 to promote school development planning in primary schools. The SDPS 
supported schools in the process of formulating a school plan that articulated the 
educational philosophy of the school, its aims and how it proposed to achieve them.
The Primary Professional Development Service (PPDS) came into being in 2008, when 
the former Primary Curriculum Support Programme (PCSP) and School Development 
Planning Support (SDPS) amalgamated, thus initiating the creation of a single support 
service for the primary sector. The PPDS operated under the Teacher Education Section 
of the Department of Education and Science, and its core work was to provide 
continuing professional development for primary school teachers. Its overarching aim 
was to support schools as professional learning communities, in which teachers’ 
professional development is closely linked to school development and improvement in 
pupil progress. During the academic year 2009-2010 a total of 1,835 primary schools 
were supported by the PPDS, with only 145 schools requesting support in physical 
education and 34 of those schools indicated that this was a number one priority, in a 

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priority list of five (Primary Professional Development Service, 2010). One of the 
forms of support provided was through six workshops that year which 46 teachers 
attended. In 2006, the PCSP had 26 trained tutors whose sole responsibility was 
physical education. By 2009, this had been reduced to nine and their remit had 
expanded to include Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) with five of the 
team involved in delivery of child protection seminars and three members provided 
support to