Tracking primary generalist teachers who completed the inaugural specialism in physical education - their observations, thoughts and experiences

Study in progressInitial teacher education (ITE) programmes should provide opportunities for pre-service teachers (PSTs) not only to build upon and refine their professional learning, but also to help them feel confident,... [ view full abstract ]

Study in progress

Initial teacher education (ITE) programmes should provide opportunities for pre-service teachers (PSTs) not only to build upon and refine their professional learning, but also to help them feel confident, comfortable and capable of teaching high-quality Physical Education (PE) to young students (Kirk 2005; Petrie 2010). Tsangaridou (2014) believes that teacher educators should seriously consider more effective ways of educating PSTs for this purpose, by offering a specialisation in PE for primary teachers within ITEs. Tsangaridou (2014) also believes that discourses and accounts exploring and discussing how teacher education programmes have prepared skilled primary teachers to teach PE are also needed.

This qualitative study tracks graduates (N=4) who have undertaken the inaugural specialism in primary PE, in Ireland, as part of their generalist undergraduate degree. It is designed to elicit these graduate teachers’ experiences of their first three years teaching PE in primary schools. Data collection included: individual interviews, pre-teaching (Sept 2016) and on completion of each school year (June 2017, 2018, and 2019). The interview data were transcribed and entered into NVivo (QSR NVivi V11) and analysed using an interpretive approach. All transcripts were categorised and themes were generated using systematic content analysis (Charmaz, 2006).

Initial examination of the findings highlight (a) the variety of teaching positions the graduates undertook (b) observations on how PE is viewed and taught in their respective settings (c) how during the school year their PE knowledge is being recognised by staff members seeking advice and support (d) key learning moments while teaching PE and (e) opportunities that arose to lead PE initiatives in their schools; The graduate teachers reported being confident in their PE teaching as beginner teachers but had concerns specific to their local contexts.