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| Feature | No.65 October 2013 |

Embedding Physical Literacy in Teacher Education at the University of Bedfordshire

Angela Newton & Sophy Bassett

Abstract

This paper examines changes made in revalidation of the University of Bedfordshire’s undergraduate Physical Education provision in 2010. This included embedding the concept of physical literacy to strengthen the degree’s academic underpinning and to provide a reasoned ideology for sustainable physical education programmes. This particular change is the focus of the article below.

The changes made to the degree are described, particularly in terms of the structure of the first two years, including pre-course and induction activities. The subsequent impact of the changes is considered up to the present day. This includes a summary of a study conducted by university staff on year 1 games teaching.

Finally, considerations for the future are shared as we move into the final year of the revised programme.

Introduction

In Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) it is important to challenge student values and beliefs if we are to move the teaching profession forward. Pre-service teachers (PSTs) begin their courses with a set of values, beliefs and expectations informed by previous experiences. Their notions of the goals of physical education at the beginning of their training courses are influenced by their experiences as a learner rather than a prospective practitioner. Since Kirk (2011) has suggested that Physical Education (PE) teaching has for some time been dominated by PE-as-sport techniques, it is important as teacher educators that we support PSTs in their development of a reasoned rationale for our subject that extends beyond physical skill. This includes challenging already established beliefs and engaging PSTs in critical analysis of the subject and effective methods of delivery.

The BA QTS Degree

The University of Bedfordshire provides one of the few remaining concurrent Physical Education initial teacher education (ITE) courses in Great Britain. This is a four year BA (honours) degree leading to the award of qualified teacher status. In 2010 the course was reviewed and revalidated affording the opportunity to reconsider the underlying rationale for the degree. A key feature of the review was to strengthen the academic underpinning through relevant current and appropriate research.

Previously, the degree had adopted an approach to practical Physical Education that we referred to as ‘Areas of Learning’. The areas were defined as ‘Body Management, Aesthetic, Interaction, Challenge and Health’. Adopting such an approach allowed us to construct a curriculum model free from the constraints of any changes to the National Curriculum for Physical Education by successive governments. The limitation of the Areas of Learning approach was that it lacked a clear philosophical underpinning. Our discussions in 2010 centred on providing a stronger rationale for the subject. The concept of physical literacy as a fundamental goal of Physical Education (Whitehead 2006) had been established for some time and seemed to provide the philosophical platform we were looking for. At Bedford we aspire to develop teachers who are able to teach confidently and competently across a broad range of activities in line with the views of Killingbeck, Bowler, Golding and Sammon (2007) and Murdoch and Whitehead (2010). This viewpoint implies that a narrow activity base in any curriculum model will clearly limit the development of physical literacy in individual learners. A broader curriculum model will support the promotion of a variety of desirable attributes and is thus more likely to enable learners to appreciate the need for physical activity throughout the life course.

What we did

The revised course explicitly underpinned the practical units with a theoretical framework based on the concept of physical literacy. Members of the department unpacked the concept of physical literacy to identify the relevance of its attributes to curriculum content in school (Killingbeck et al. 2007). They considered four areas of activity and their relationship to physical literacy. Units of work containing practical areas in the first two years of the degree embedded the attributes identified in Table 1. These were ‘Reading the Environment, Interaction, Health, Physical Competence and Expression and Communication’. It was acknowledged that all activities could contribute to the development of each attribute, whilst certain activities made a more significant contribution to some of these attributes. With this in mind, practical units of work were constructed as demonstrated in the table below. Year one would look at attributes more obviously inherent in the activities whilst year two would examine the other attributes. Health would be considered in each unit. Contextualising physical literacy through specific activities, would allow the whole concept to become extended and enriched. For example the ability to interact with others perceptively and empathetically through the experiences of lifesaving in swimming, contact improvisation in dance and tactical play in games would expand PSTs’ knowledge of how pupils might develop their embodied capabilities through a breadth of activity.

Table 1: Table to show the development of physical literacy attributes across year one and year two practical units

Implications for Lesson Planning

The changes made to the practical units in year one and two of the course have also influenced PSTs’ lesson planning. In addition to fulfilling National Curriculum requirements PSTs are also challenged to consider planning for physical literacy. In conjunction with writing clear lesson objectives, PSTs are required to highlight opportunities to develop pupil personal characteristics by identifying which attributes might afford a particular focus in relation to the lesson aims. This contributes to Whitehead’s (2011) notion of physical literacy as a disposition embracing far more than merely physical competencies.

Where are we now?

The new degree has now been running for three years. The effects on PSTs’ values and beliefs have been evident in aspects of their coursework designed to develop reflective practice. In the previous degree, there was rarely a mention of ‘Areas of Learning’ but physical literacy now features regularly as an element of their emerging ideologies.

Year One Induction

To ensure that PSTs are aware of the notion of physical literacy as early in the degree as possible, the incoming year one PSTs are set a number of pre course reading tasks accompanied by other suggested readings based around physical literacy. This ensures that they have at least some notion of the term and the language associated with it and can start to consider their own ideas of what Physical Education is. These preparatory tasks are then drawn upon in the induction week of the degree, where tasks are reviewed and discussed and links are made in both practical and theoretical activities. This also includes a one hour introductory lecture by Professor Margaret Whitehead.

Year One Study

In order to investigate whether the underpinning of physical literacy in the degree was being achieved, members of the department undertook a study to explore how they sought to embed physical literacy in the year one generic striking and fielding (S and F) games unit within the Physical Literacy Foundations 1 unit (Bassett, Sammon and Casey 2013). In this unit, PSTs were given the opportunity to develop their understanding of physical literacy through the introduction of its key principles and philosophies and with a specific focus on three attributes, namely Reading the Environment, Interaction and Health via a Teaching Games for Understanding (TGFU) Model. If, as Whitehead (2010) suggests, teachers are to become a significant other, both the teaching approaches and the needs of individuals should be considered. The study identified a unique set of challenges within the degree as the teacher educators had to model the TGFU approach and embed the elements of physical literacy into their teaching to enable the PSTs to recognise the need for a blend of pedagogy with consideration of aspects of experience, understanding and interaction that are seminal to physical literacy (Bassett et al. 2013). This offered quite a challenge for the year one PSTs. Not only was their subject knowledge being developed, but also their philosophy of Physical Education was being challenged. In addition the pedagogical approaches most suitable to achieve these ends were being placed under scrutiny. Consequently, both the teacher educators and PSTs were required to teach and learn in new ways. The teacher educators had to embed the elements of physical literacy in their teaching so that PSTs understood the nuanced blend of pedagogy through the TGFU model and the promotion of physical literacy, in the interests of motivating pupils to engage in physical activity throughout their life course.

Through analysis of reflective blogs, peer discussion and pre and post unit interviews, the three members of the department identified that through working in realistic and productive practical contexts, the PSTs gained confidence in performance, decision making, group work and creativity. They became increasingly able to link aspects of physical literacy to the modified games contexts in which they were working and understood the need to develop curriculum activities drawn from a broader generic focus on genres of games and not individual games. The PSTs also showed a developing appreciation of links between practical activities and theoretical contexts and how physical literacy could become inherent in their delivery of striking and fielding games within their own teaching. However, the study could not predict whether the PSTs would have sufficient confidence to pursue this understanding in consequent school placements.

Year Three Assignment

The new degree has just completed its third year. At the end of the year PSTs were asked to produce a synoptic assignment that involved creating a scheme of work for key stage 3 and providing a rationale for their choice of contexts and pedagogies. It was notable that the majority of PSTs attaining marks in the good honours category cited physical literacy as part of their rationale. This has provided a degree of optimism moving forward into the final year of the new degree programme.

Year Four Praxis

At the end of the academic year 2013/14, the first cohort will graduate from the new degree programme. As part of their final year of study, Professor Margaret Whitehead will return to give a key note lecture. She will review the current Physical Education agendas and influences, including physical literacy, in order to further challenge the students’ emerging ideologies and to explore a range of alternative ideas. Following this lecture PSTs will write a final assignment that articulates their physical education ideology in the context of a PE teacher in the 21st century. This assignment will give the authors of this article another opportunity to review the impact of physical literacy on the values and beliefs of PSTs.

Looking ahead

The full impact of the ideology underpinning the new degree will not become apparent until our current PSTs have established themselves in a teaching post. We acknowledge that the “organisational socialisation” (Lawson 1983a, 1983b), that is, the socialisation that PSTs encounter when entering their first posts, can prove more powerful than the “professional socialisation” (Lawson 1983a, 1983b) that they have been exposed to in their initial teacher education. The authors intend to track a selection of the first cohort graduating in 2014 across the first five years of their teaching. We remain hopeful that we will have prepared teachers who are inspired to make a difference.

References

1. Bassett, S., Sammon, P. and Casey, A. (2013) Learning to Teach Pre-Service Teachers Through Physical Literacy. Physical Education Matters. Spring 2013. Vol

2. Killingbeck, M., Bowler, M., Golding, D. & Sammon, P. (2007) ‘Physical Literacy and Physical Education’, Physical Education Matters, Summer 2007 Vol.2 No.2

3. Kirk, D. (2011) The crisis of Content Knowledge. How PETE maintains the id2 of physical education-as-sport-techniques (part 3). Physical Education Matters, Summer 2011 Vol.6 No.2

4. Kirk, D. (2010) Physical Education Futures. London. Routledge.

5. Lawson, H. (1983a) Toward a model of teacher socialisation in physical education: The subject warrant, recruitment and teacher education. Journal of Teaching Physical Education. 2 (3), 3 – 16

6. Lawson, H. (1983b) Toward a Model of Teacher Socialization in Physical Education: Entry into Schools, Teachers’ Role Orientations and Longevity in Teaching (Part 2). Journal of Teaching Physical Education. 3 (1), 3-11

7. Murdoch, E. and Whitehead, M. (2010) ‘Physical literacy, fostering the attributes and curriculum planning’ in Whitehead, M. (2010) Physical Literacy Throughout the Lifecourse. Routledge

8. Whitehead, M. (2010) Physical Literacy Throughout the Lifecourse. Routledge

9. Whitehead, M. (2011) The importance and value of physical literacy throughout the lifecourse, based on existential and phenomenological schools of thought. Physical Education Matters. Summer 2011 Vol. 6 No. 2

10. Whitehead, M. with Murdoch, E. (2006) Physical Literacy and Physical Education. Conceptual Mapping. Physical Education Matters. Summer 2006 Vol. 1 No. 1

Contact

Angela Newton & Sophy Bassett
University of Bedfordshire
United Kingdom
Email angela.newton@beds.ac.uk
Email sophy.bassett@beds.ac.uk

http://www.icsspe.org/