Search

After two decades of political interest in primary Physical Education (PE) and school sport, the London 2012 Games (and its promised legacy) ushered in a new wave of government investment. To date,...

© 2018, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This paper examines the growth in importance and scale of the outdoor recreation sector in the United Kingdom. It establishes a five-component model to help understand the growth in this sub-sector of the wider sport and physical activity industry. The paper is based on a narrative literature review of the importance of outdoor recreation and also sets the position of the sector in terms of sport policy in the UK. From determining the factors that are underpinning the growing importance of the sector the article goes on to establish implications for policy and practice in sport policy and development in the UK and beyond. It seeks to establish lesson learning between industry and academia that has underpinned the evolution of outdoor recreation policy development in recent years. Furthermore, it establishes future research agendas and directions for those working in outdoor recreation and physical activity spaces and places.

Physical Education is widespread across the world, yet despite its cultural variation it remains remarkably similar. The ability of the subject to replicate its practices makes it a potential site for exploration from a memetic perspective. The purpose of this paper is to examine documentary evidence such as research papers, policy documents and inspection reports, and offer for consideration potential memes that are at work within the memeplex of UK, primary school Physical Education. Four proposals are offered as potential memes: ‘sport as techniques’; ‘anyone can teach it’; ‘busy, happy and good’; and ‘nowhere important’. It is concluded that the current environment in primary schooling within the UK, serves to strengthen the proposed four primary Physical Education memes by reaffirming current practices. Moving beyond these memes requires significant rethinking about what constitutes primary Physical Education.

This chapter provides an overview of the Physical Education (PE) curriculum at Key Stage 1, with practical examples to support curriculum planning for physical development. It highlights some of the contemporary challenges facing teachers in meeting the subject’s expectations. Key Stage 1 frames a child’s first formal experience of the National Curriculum and of PE and must, therefore, set the tone and ambition of what it means to be physically educated. The education of the physical self can create spaces where children learn about themselves, how to be healthy and invite social interaction. The chapter describes a lesson where Key Stage 1 children were involved in a pirate themed treasure hunt, finding and solving clues in small groups. The environment and context for learning will shape the child’s movement experience, which at this stage should be characterised by mastery, opportunity, exploration and practice.

In March 2013 the government announced that it was to provide funding to improve provision of Physical Education and sport in primary schools in England. Entitled The Primary Physical Education and Sport Premium, this ring-fenced annual funding has been allocated to schools that are free to choose how the money is spent but are accountable for its use and must make their expenditure publicly available on their website. This case study located within the West Midlands region of England viewed 1848 primary school websites to find out how primary schools spent their first years’ Physical Education and Sport Premium funding.

Routledge handbook of primary physical education , Routledge handbook of primary physical education , کتابخانه‌های دانشگاه کردستان

Across the world Physical Education remains a contested concept and finds itself, as a curriculum subject, in an arguably unique position, with felt pressures from three competing discourses and po...

Football management games have long been a successful computer game genre combining the worlds of passionate and opinionated football fans and gamers obsessed with overachievements in quasi-reality environments. These types of games propel the consumer into a newfound intertextual “reality.” It is here that feelings of identification are played out and where pseudosocial relationships begin to develop. This article charts such relationships, as they are explicated online in the form of online blogs. Through analysing the content of Championship Manager/Football Manager blogs, data show how game players speak frequently of pseudosocial relationships, characterised in this case study by emotions of loyalty and friendship. Many have nostalgic tales from past achievements and bonds with individual players that bridge the many iterations of the game over the past 15 years. This study highlights experiences, as cited by bloggers, which transcends physical and virtual realities.

The paper examines the documentary style film Through the Fire which traces the fortunes of high school basketball player Sebastian Telfair. It is posited that the principles of Fordism best explai...

On 21 July 2013 Chris Froome became only the second British cyclist to win the Tour de France. This paper examines how the events surrounding Froome’s victory in the 2013 Tour de France were reported in the British (London-based) print media the day after his victory. Data were collected from nine different daily newspapers on 22 July with a total of 52 pages of coverage devoted to the story. Thematic coding revealed that, despite a comprehensive victory, Froome appeared to be framed as being in the shadow of two other prominent cyclists. Firstly, Froome’s victory appeared to be framed within a moral panic surrounding the use of performance-enhancing drugs in cycling, with his achievements partially overshadowed by the ‘folk devil’ that is Lance Armstrong. Secondly, the data suggested that narratives around British national identity were prevalent within the reporting of Chris Froome, with this reporting particularly focused on the issue of his African heritage. Initial analysis indicated that the British print media actually celebrated Froome’s African roots, suggesting that they may be starting to embrace a new post-imperial form of national identity that reflects the multicultural or hybrid nature of 21st century Britain. However, we would also argue that Froome may only have achieved an ambivalent position as a British hero and that his African heritage – although celebrated to an extent – means that in the eyes of the British print media he still sits below Sir Bradley Wiggins in what might be described as a ‘hierarchy of Britishness’.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to review Olympic mascots in the electronic and traditional communications environments.Design/methodology/approach– Olympic mascots from 2006 to 2012 are analyzed using a descriptive semiotic analysis technique.Findings– Results found that none of the 2006-2012 mascots clearly represented the two most recognizable icons of the Olympic movement, the Olympic Rings and the Olympic Flame. The association of the London 2012 mascots with the Olympic Games are found to be limited.Research limitations/implications– This research sets the stage for a number of future studies to further assess the management issues, social benefits, and potential missteps regarding mascots at the Olympic Games and other mega-events.Practical implications– The practitioner of today working for a mega-event like the Olympic Games needs to be aware of the potential benefits and inherent risks of developing and implementing a mascot.Originality/value– This research is the first to look specifically at Olympic mascots in the electronic age and contrast their use to traditional communications.

The London 2012 Olympic Games were widely reported as the ‘Women's Games’ but was this reflected in the photographic representation in British print media? This study focused upon photographic representation of athletes in the British print media during the London 2012 Olympic Games. The original dimension of this investigation is the triangulation of gender with location, position and camera angle of photos. From a feminist perspective, content analysis was used to compare the amount and prominence of the coverage devoted to female and male athletes and photographs during the Games findings indicate that media coverage of female athletes continues to lag behind that of male athletes in quantity of photos. However, there are signs of increased gender equality in the location, page prominence and camera angle of photos of sportswomen compared to previous studies on the media representation of female athletes at Olympic Games.

Global mega events such as the Olympic Games can be considered one of the major spectacles of media culture, providing entertainment, drama and a range of characters for the audience to identify with. The narratives and images consumed form the basis of a series of collective, shared memories within a society. Despite the power that collective memories may have, iconic sporting moments may also have private significance for an individual. In this paper, we examine these, what might be termed ‘mental postcards’. The study was conducted within the West Midlands of the UK, with participants asked to identify their most memorable moment as a spectator of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Though respondents' accounts were idiosyncratic, highly individualized, and covered a range of sports, thematic coding revealed three specific themes: ‘What a Hero’, ‘We Won’ and ‘Show What It Means’.

Legacy rhetoric claiming to inspire a generation of young people has pervaded the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics from the initial bidding processes, through to post events discourses. On the eve of the closing ceremony David Cameron, published a statement on the Number 10 webpage stating a desire to put competitive sport at the heart of a new curriculum for primary Physical Education. This intention will impact upon a congested policy space within which it is the dominant discourse, rather than the most appropriate, which will prevail and will result in the formation of policy by the way. This paper examines the potential impact of the statement from Number 10 on pedagogical practice within Primary Physical Education.

On 8 February 2012 Fabio Capello resigned from his position as manager of the England men’s national association football (soccer) team. The date this decision became public coincided with the acquittal in court of Harry Redknapp following the Tottenham Hotspur FC manager being accused of tax evasion. As Redknapp was considered the media favourite to succeed Capello as England manager, press coverage of these two events proved an interesting case through which to explore the current relationship between English national identity, soccer and the English national press. As such, this paper is concerned with how the events of that day were reported by nine different English national newspapers across 82 pages of coverage. Thematic analysis revealed that journalists often adopted a ‘Little Englander’ mentality with regards to their attitudes towards Capello, due to his Italian nationality. Contrary to this, the press frequently depicted Redknapp as a typically ‘English’ working-class hero linking him with nostalgic references to a bygone ‘golden era’ of English soccer. These findings illustrate the main ways in which the English press continue to present English national identity via their soccer-related coverage as insular and rooted in the past.

Almost every Olympic city has some form of legacy and while most commonly the types of legacies discussed concern physical facilities and their continuing utility, many of the most valuable legacies are ‘psychological or social in nature’. As part of the enduring legacy of any Olympic Games, the importance of the mascot as a live symbol of such an event must not be underestimated. In designing an effective mascot, the difficulty lies in creating a character that effectively represents a brand that resonates with both the Olympics and the image the host city wishes to convey to the global audience. The effectiveness of Olympic mascots has been analysed using a framework of semiotic metafunctions and through this lens, this paper examines the mascots for the Summer Olympic Games to be held in London in 2012.

In the United Kingdom, alternative sports have experienced unprecedented growth in participation and visibility. Alternative sports have become so central to the physical activity and cultural lifestyles of young people that for many they have challenged and replaced traditional team sports. However, despite the amount of interest that alternative sports have generated in the UK in recent years, insights have yet to be offered as to why this shift has occurred. This paper seeks to offer new and critical perspectives in the search for an explanation.

The growing trend of employing sports coaches in primary schools to deliver both curricular physical education and extracurricular activities is a relatively recent phenomenon in the UK. Though a small number of research papers have sought to document this occurrence, they appear to have fallen some way short of capturing the complexity of the educational landscape. Using an applied theoretical framework from complexity theory, a number of specific insights are highlighted. The paper concludes by suggesting that the UK finds itself at a pivotal point in the pedagogical future of primary physical education.

Within the UK, physical education finds itself, as a curriculum subject, in a contested space with felt pressures from competing discourses and policy areas. This paper contests that over time within this nexus, physical education has become disconnected in four specific ways: from the wider movement culture, from other curriculum subjects, within the curriculum between different age phases and between training and teacher needs. The paper discusses each of these disconnections and, importantly, offers suggestions about how reconnections might be found.

This article takes a reflective stance on the development of practice in scaffolding and mediating for creativity and potentially better performance in gymnastics. The pedagogical approach outlined illustrates how an experienced practitioner can adopt mediational (rather than meddling) and scaffolding techniques to focus on supporting the development of creativity. Various teaching tactics and their influences on the nature and direction of learning are described. Dialogic reflections from the students as well as examples of task outcomes offer insight into the impact of this approach on learning processes and performance outcomes. Reflections-in-action, on-action and post-action from this study offer suggestions about how a learning programme could be re-focused, tasks structured and mediational approaches adapted to support more creativity in the teaching and learning of gymnastics specifically and in learning in general.

In a highly mediated world, iconic sporting moments are repeatedly relived, with their significance reinforced by a series of media montages. These narratives form the basis of a series of collective, shared memories within a society. Despite the power that collective memories may have, iconic sporting moments may also have private significance for an individual. In this paper, we examine these, what might be termed “mental postcards.” The study was conducted within the West Midlands of the UK, with participants asked to identify their most memorable moment as a spectator of sport. Though respondents’ accounts were idiosyncratic, highly individualized, and covered a range of sports, thematic coding revealed four specific themes: “What a Hero,” “Never Say Die,” “Being There,” and “We Won.”

The representation of female athletes by the British print media has been an area for close scrutiny since the mid-1990s. This article examines the representation of England’s Women’s performance at the 2009 Cricket World Cup. Using a qualitative content analysis of 29 articles from seven newspapers over the duration of the tournament, results show that the main themes emerging were: description of play, performance, celebration, media coverage and women’s sport. These results are discussed in the context of changing trends since the 1990s. Concurring with previous authors we acknowledge that trends have changed in terms of what is reported but not in terms of how much is reported.

In recent years, the pervasive practice of student initiation ceremonies into university sports teams has become widely reported in the British media. Such initiations have been likened to the practice known as hazing, which is prevalent in universities across the USA. Although there is some research that has considered how and why hazing occurs in American universities, less attention has been paid to the initiation ceremonies that regularly occur in British institutions. This article provides an overview of some of the literature that has examined the practice of hazing in the USA in order to set the scene for much needed research in the UK.

Physical Education remains a contested concept across the world maintaining links in various ways and in varying degrees to education, sport and health. The close and historical links of these areas upon Physical Education have continued to influence both policy and practice and have impacted significantly upon areas such as inclusive pedagogy. This chapter firstly seeks to explain the unique landscape of Physical Education before considering specific issues of inclusion within Physical Education. A move towards inclusive pedagogies within Physical Education is then explained before lesson examples are offered for both the primary and secondary Physical Education practitioner.

This essay examines the British media’s reporting of German football club FC St Pauli’s promotion to the Bundesliga. Analysis of the articles reveals a utopian view of what FC St Pauli represents within the culture of football, and this is explained through identified themes of ‘nostalgic idealism’ and ‘resistant identity’. The article also draws attention to the underplaying of evidence of investment and development in a bid to highlight the footballing antithesis that FC St Pauli is described as offering. Finally, it makes recommendations for fieldwork to be carried out, to examine in greater detail not only the reported alternative culture, but also how this identity can be negotiated in the future, in an increasingly globalized and commercialized world.

The playing of games has been a long standing tradition in physical education. Yet despite its history, the teaching of games within primary physical education lessons remains something of a weakness. This is most evident through a continued focus upon skill acquisition and a lack of fostering of a real ‘tactical understanding’ of game play. Despite attempts to rectify this issue through the development of instructional models, a lack of conceptual clarity remains. This paper proposes a framework that goes some way to rectify this ambiguity by proposing to focus upon what are referred to as ‘Principles of Play’. It is recommended that this approach should become the focus when conceptualising what constitutes primary games lessons.

Increased usage and accessibility of the Internet has led to the rapid growth of cyber communities; typical of groups that have embraced this idea are those who participate in what have been termed alternative or lifestyle sports. Thus far, this online world has received little attention from ethnographers, but the potential for obtaining rich data in this area is huge, most notably through the practice of researching messages sent to Internet-based forums, known as list mining. The inclusion of list mining as a research method, however, is not without its problems and raises new ethical issues when conducting qualitative research. This paper examines in detail the ethical considerations concerning the use of list mining as a method of data collection within the alternative sporting subculture of Ultimate Frisbee.

A recurring theme throughout the literature pertaining to the development of sports and games is the construction of rules or laws. However, it is well known that, in reality, there is much more to ‘playing by the rules’ and in practice sport participants are generally considered to be both playing according to and in the spirit of the rules. This distinction is termed ‘formal and informal fair play’. Using an ethnographic approach data were gathered in the Ultimate Frisbee community in the UK from 2004–7, through participant observation, the conducting of interviews and the examination of documentary evidence. This paper reports upon the ‘inner workings’ of the sport of Ultimate Frisbee, specifically within the UK, and provides an insight into how, in this sport, the constitutive rules work in practice, which is of particular interest given that it is self-refereed. Of further interest, too, is the application of constitutive rules within a pervasive ‘ethos’, which is referred to in Ultimate Frisbee as t...

In 1978, a 12‐year‐old girl, Theresa Bennett, legally challenged the Football Association (FA) for a right to play in an under‐12s team. Her original challenge was successful but then revoked on appeal six weeks later. Since 1978, there have been significant changes in the social landscape and structure of women's football in Britain. This article analyses the reporting of the Bennett case in the context of these recent changes. We conclude by acknowledging that considerable progress has been made by women's football in Britain, but that these changes are limited to primarily grass‐roots participation and illustrate the patriarchal structure and practices of football today.

There have been strengthening recommendations that physical education (PE) should make a wider contribution to learning beyond that of psychomotor development. Cooperative learning models show considerable potential for study in PE but as yet these remain unexplored. This article reports upon an undergraduate gymnastics programme delivered using a jigsaw learning approach. A purposive sample of 61 third‐year PE undergraduates was selected for the study and data were collected using focus‐group interviews and field notes. In evaluating the jigsaw learning approach it became apparent that while it had clearly met the needs of a wider set of priorities, such as those of the affective and cognitive learning domains, it fundamentally failed to facilitate psychomotor learning. Such tensions may well become increasingly apparent as practitioners of PE navigate its place within future educational structures and raise interesting questions as to what ‘high‐quality’ PE should actually be.

With the pressures of time and finance schools find themselves under, such as the need to meet ever-increasing Public Service Agreement targets for pupil participation in physical education (PE) and school sport, the need to provide extended school hours and the need to cover planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time, sports coaches are being increasingly used in primary schools to fill the void. How exactly this current situation has emerged remains unclear. In order to shed light on this issue, sports coaches (n = 23) returned self-completion questionnaires before engaging in follow-up interviews, semi-structured in nature. The paper discusses key themes emerging from the data including a lack of teacher engagement in extra-curricular provision, the cost of covering PPA time, a willingness of teachers to ‘give up’ the teaching of PE and the apparent confidence exuded by sports coaches.

The focus of this study examines the repeated references and celebration of more aesthetic elements in Ultimate Frisbee by both performers and spectators. This aspect was an emergent theme from a b...

Consideration of the sporting landscape within which an activity takes place is an aspect that is often taken for granted but close inspection can reveal a wealth of information that is easily found, waiting to be decoded (Cosgrove 1989). Such information is important because it allows the values ascribed to the landscape to become more clearly visible (Lewis 1979). This study examines the sport of Ultimate Frisbee and uses a modified framework devised by Meinig (1979) to analyse different ‘views of the sports landscape’. An ethnographic approach was used and data were gathered through participant observation, the conducting of interviews and the examination of documentary evidence. Findings indicate that since the formation of a new governing body in the UK, greater standardisation of the sporting landscape has become apparent, however, spatial, temporal and constitutional boundaries within Ultimate Frisbee remain ‘soft’ and continue to be indicative of the sport's origins and ‘the alternative sports mov...