Background: The outsourcing of health, sport and physical educational (HSPE) work has been a feature of physical education (PE) 'futures talk' for over 20 years (Kirk, 2009). However, HSPE work outsourcing has been the focus of little empirical research and only occasional commentary. That small amount of empirical research that has been conducted has been narrow in scope, focusing exclusively on primary schools and at times presented data that are partial and fragmentary.Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to investigate HSPE work outsourcing in the Australian state of Queensland. Specifically, we examined the prevalence of such outsourcing among Queensland schools, the ways that these schools were using it, and the reasons why they had done so.Methods: A random, proportionately stratified sample of 846 Queensland schools was invited to participate in this study. This sample included government and non-government, primary, secondary, combined primarysecondary and special schools. Data were collected via a mixed-mode survey design that was implemented using Internet and paper-copy forms of a context specific 21-item questionnaire (Dillman et al., 2009).Results: The questionnaire's response rate was 32%. Simple relational analyses (Sarantakos 2005) of the data demonstrated that: (a) 85% (n=230) of schools reported outsourcing some form of HSPE work in the previous twelve months; (b) many schools used outsourced HSPE work for outdoor adventure activities and extra-curricular activities; (c) 75% (n=203) of all respondents engaged in some form of fee-based outsourcing and 83% of all outsourcing arrangements were fee-based; (d) the majority of schools paid for outsourced HSPE work using school funds or by charging participating students; and, (e) the most frequently reported reason for outsourcing HSPE work was to access external suppliers' expertise.Conclusions: These data replicate some findings of previous research in a different research context as well as presenting forms of data on HSPE work outsourcing hitherto unreported. Furthermore, they demonstrate the ways in which HSPE work is embedded in broader social, political and economic shifts, particularly changing relations between capital, education and the state. Finally they also serve to prompt critical questions about why HSPE work is outsourced, how it is outsourced and the impact it has on the educational labour process and all those involved in it. We conclude that HSPE work outsourcing is a practice with the potential to significantly disturb labouring, learning and the politics of expertise as they relate to health, sport and physical education. Practitioner summaryThe purpose of this paper was to investigate the outsourcing of health, sport and physical educational (HSPE) work in the Australian state of Queensland, its prevalence, the ways it was used, and the reasons why it was undertaken. Data were collected by surveying a sample of 846 government and non-government, primary, secondary, combined primary-secondary and special schools. The data obta...

Outsourcing is a complex, controversial and pervasive practice that is increasingly becoming a matter of concern for educational researchers. This article contributes to this literature by examining outsourcing practices related to health, sport and physical education (HSPE). Specifically, it reports data on specialist HPE teachers', principals' and external providers' reasons for participating in outsourcing arrangements. These data were obtained from a collective case study of six schools and the external providers that they outsourced HSPE to over a 12-month period, using semi-structured interviews and overt participant observations. The findings illustrate the ways in which the informants explained their outsourcing practices using a variety of educationally-and organisationally-oriented reasons. Educational value, human resources (e.g., expertise), physical resources (e.g., facilities), and symbolic resources (e.g., status), were reasons for outsourcing HSPE that were commonly cited by principals and specialist HPE teachers. Among external providers, educational value, income generation and promotion/advertising were frequently cited to explain their work with and for schools. These findings illustrate the ways in which outsourcing practices in HSPE articulate with, and are implicated in, broader educational privatisations. They also highlight the boundaries that outsourcing practices trouble or reinforce, such as those marking the purview of markets, membership of the HPE profession, and the constitution of expertise.

Summary School-based programs may be more effective when an array of stakeholders, including users, are involved during the relevant stages of program co-creation—specifically during key development stages such as design, implementation and evaluation. How such programs can be operationally co-created and tested is less known and is therefore the purpose of this article. Two sequential co-design phases underpin this study. First, a co-design session with 20 health and physical education (HPE) teachers focussed on reviewing, testing and critically discussing initial prototype online modules for an alcohol education program. Teacher insights were assessed and incorporated, and the updated online modules were tested with secondary school students (n = 120) capturing their experience in a classroom setting. Insights from each group were analysed using thematic analysis. Teachers and students serve important roles in program co-creation. Teachers remain an underutilized stakeholder group whom are however critical in delivering important insights to enhance educational program design. Teachers demanded more relevance to the national curriculum, further alignment with curriculum assessment standards, and age appropriate content. Student feedback focussed largely on realistic content, personalization and gamification elements. This study represents an application of the seven-step co-design process and advances understanding of the ‘fuzzy back-end’ of the process, namely reflecting on feasibility of integrating teacher and student feedback and ideas. More specifically, how these key—yet distinct—stakeholder groups can be involved, and the merits of their involvement are discussed.

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