Physical education and the New Zealand curriculum: Maximising the opportunity.

Curriculum revisions and other Ministry of Education initiatives implemented over the past two decades have drastically changed schooling in New Zealand. In particular, the 1999 release, of Health and Physical Education in the New Zealand (Ministry of Education, 1999) required significant shifts in both teachers' thinking and practices of school-based Physical Education. While many teachers made these shifts, others did not, and now, nearly ten years on, teachers have another curriculum to contend with -- The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007). In this paper I briefly discuss some of the challenges and promises that Health and Physical Education in the New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 1999) has afforded before interrogating the possibilities yielded and those arguably 'lost' for Physical Education in the recently released New Zealand Curriculum. I conclude by suggesting that the 2007 curriculum document does not necessarily advance the cause of Physical Education nor address the deficiencies of the 1999 Health and Physical Education in the New Zealand Curriculum in ways that it might have. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]