Reflections on PE and FMS
Recently I have been revisiting fundamental movement
skill literature as I am coordinating the core HPE topic for undergrad
generalist primary school teachers, and it has led me to reflect on why the
decline in movement competency continues despite persistent research pointing
to this for many years. Does PE and its dominant curriculum expression have
anything to do with this phenomenon?
When I was at primary school in the 1970s, we had
daily physical activity breaks, school finished at lunch on Wednesday and
everyone went off for interschool sport or sport practice, and our primary
teachers on yard duty went around telling us at recess and lunch to 'get up and
kick the footy and run around'; similar occurred in high school, and when classes
finished at lunch on Wednesday we went off to intraschool sport or recreation
activities like windsurfing.
When I went through teachers college completing a
Bachelor of Physical Education in the early-mid 1980s there was a heavy
emphasis on teaching for movement competency. While the paradigm was clearly
behavourist, with teaching for movement model replication the content focus,
leading to closed drill technique testing and ‘skills stations’, we were left
in no doubt a core function of the PE teacher was to develop individual
movement skill competency, and to coach school or community teams was a natural
extension of our professional responsibility to promote movement competency
more broadly in the community. Competency presumed confidence to choose to be
active or perhaps self-efficacy, and contribute to the habit of mind that led
one to wish pursue an active life. As for role modelling, all of my lecturers
were active coaches (some having coached at international level) and most were
former PE teachers.
During a PE school teaching career that spanned the
1980s-1990s-2000s, I experienced repeatedly the influence of health promotion
and exercise/physical activity professionals eyeing PE as a site for
“interventions” to maximise step counts, heart rate, MVPA and many things other
than movement competence. Messages implicit and explicit, included - Expose
young people to many different forms of sport and PA so they might find
something they like and choose to pursue beyond the school gate, at some stage
in their life; Run students at the start of class, or maximise MVPA, to get
heart rates up and so PE can help prevent the ‘obesity crises’; and, PE is a
preventative health measure because it contributes to physical activity
accumulation. Rarely was the inherent educative value of PE asserted in these
conversations, and not often did movement competence form part of the health
promotion message. I cannot help thinking that perhaps PE teaching was subtly
being deskilled. After all, if PE is nothing substantially more than an
activity space contributing to physical activity accumulation during the school
day a school does not need a PE program. A program delivered by sport
development officers, or a physical activity program staffed by industry
activity program leaders, can do the job of a ‘come and try’, or ‘huff and
puff’, or a 'brain break' energiser program, when the emphasis is on content
experiences and not education.
Perhaps then not surprisingly the Australian
Government Independent Sport Panel in 2009 recommended PE and Sport become a
separate learning area in the new Australian Curriculum so PE could recapture
its identity.
Perhaps it is worthwhile going back to the
Australian Government Independent Sport Panel and revisit the meaning of this
recommendation? - after all, if the HPE learning area is meant to educate for
active and healthy living the current marriage of convenience between Health
Education and Physical Education, created out of the National Statements and
Profiles in the mid-1990’s, isn’t judged well by the recent Report Card on the
Physical Activity of Children and Young People[2].
The Australian Government Independent Sport Panel
(2009) recommendations: to make PE a curriculum priority, mandatory exposure to
PE teaching in pre-service primary school teacher education, regulate a minimum
time requirement for PE in curriculum time, and sport programs during the span
of hours of the school day - remain prescient if primary schools are to have
the specialist knowledge and curriculum time dedicated to educate for movement
skill competency. Emphasising this perspective, The Active Healthy Kids
Australia 2016 Report indicated that
for primary school students, only 33–39% engage in at least 120 minutes of PE
per week. It is well understood that volume of practice + guidance by quality
teaching/mentoring is the equation for competency in any field. On the figures
indicated above it is clear many primary schools are not providing adequate
time and/or the PE expertise to develop young peoples’ movement competency for
active and healthy living. (State-based data indicated that for secondary
school students, only 27–49% engage in at least 120 minutes of PE per week).
McGrane et al (2016) FMS study concluded an
emergent relationship between skill proficiency and self-confidence, and the
potential interaction between FMS and physical self-confidence have influence
on physical activity levels. Bardid et al (2015) research concluded motor
competence in childhood is an important determinant of physical activity and
physical fitness later in life. Lubans et al (2010) found strong evidence for a positive association between FMS competency
and physical activity in children and adolescents. Gallahue & Ozmun (2002)
explain that while FMS are the foundation for a physically active life, their
development is not automatic, and cannot be assumed. The Australian Government
Preventative Health Task Force (2009)[4] called for training and support for
PE teachers ‘to motivate and inspire children to
engage in physical activity’. I would add, ‘to teach for movement competence
that enables engagement in physical activity now and in the future’.
The HPE curriculum in
every Australian state and territory is more similar than different and all
have an explicit focus on the development of FMS in the early primary school
years. There is an old adage in teaching that what is tested and measured gets
taught. Evidence of declining movement competency, lack of time for teaching PE
explicitly in many primary schools, and lack of curriculum time enabling
attainment of the curriculum achievement standard expectations even when
specialist PE teachers are employed, suggest to me it is time to debate whether
FMS achievement should be nationally tested and reported so it, and PE, can
become an education priority.
*ACHPER[i]
recently voiced concern about the recent
new evidence showing that we are putting our kids at early higher risk of
chronic disease and impeding their academic progress by failing to provide
quality Health and Physical Education in all schools.
[1] http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/kids/research-shows-aussie-kids-cant-throw-or-catch-as-well-as-30-years-ago/news-story/c1b0a714c2c9f865075a48c544fa7585
[3] https://theconversation.com/cant-throw-cant-catch-australian-kids-are-losing-that-sporting-edge-36822
[4] http://www.health.gov.au/internet/preventativehealth/publishing.nsf/Content/A06C2FCF439ECDA1CA2574DD0081E40C/$File/discussion-28oct.pdf
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