Educators Perspectives on the Value of Physical Education, Physical Activity and Fundamental Movement Skills for Early Years Foundation Stage Children in England

Abstract

There is a lack of information available for physical education (PE) provision in the early years foundation stage (EYFS), prompting concern about what is currently delivered in schools and the values behind the approaches taken. Using semi-structured interviews, this study investigated educators’ perspectives on the value of PE and physical activity (PA) for EYFS children across England in relation to opportunities for, barriers to, and benefits of PA and PE. This study collected important stakeholder views and can help shape the impact and implementation of fundamental movement skills (FMS) and PA interventions at the EYFS.

Early years professionals’ perceptions and practices of motor skill development, physical activity and healthy eating

“…Similar, to the points discussed above, in terms of the PA barriers, lack of staff training and confidence were one of the consistently reported barriers by the EYPs for PA promotion. Such observations align with the Dobell et al (2021) findings which highlights the need for the action to improve the quality of PA and FMS provision resources and training for EYPs.…”

“…Despite this, over 40% of the respondents had not heard of FMS before. These results are comparable to recent studies where primary school teachers demonstrated little to zero perceived comprehension on FMS, having any training on FMS (Eddy et al 2021) and thus, lack of confidence in its upskilling in children (Dobell et al 2021). Prior work by Ma et al (2021) using the Collective-Intelligence science approach with relevant stakeholders (e.g.…”

“…The aforementioned statements align with the key factors set out in EYFS framework (Department of Education (DoE 2021)). However, given the lack of support and the fact that the importance of the development of the FMS in EYFs is only considered within the broader construct of motor development within the framework (Dobell et al 2021), our findings are positive as EYPs provided some basic, but adequate, understanding of FMS. Despite this, over 40% of the respondents had not heard of FMS before.…”

“…Open-ended response questions were assessed using a thematic analysis approach (Braun and Clarke 2014), as previously used when examining EYP using the following six-stage process: (a) familiarisation with the data, (b) generating initial codes, (c) searching for themes, (d) reviewing themes, (e) defining and naming themes and (f) producing the report. This method of thematic analysis has been previously used in studies surveying sports coaches and those working in early years settings (Bentley et al 2012;Roscoe, James, and Duncan 2017;Dobell et al 2021;Duncan, Weldon, et al 2022). Thereafter, overarching clear and identifiably distinct themes, representing the main ideas or patterns emerging from the raw data were generated for each open-ended question and agreed upon by two of the researchers XX and XX (removed for review).…”

Johsk

“…Per the Wisconsin Budget Project report (2017), school districts in Wisconsin faced extreme teacher shortages, with 46% of openings (1,153 jobs) including physical education teachers. Mousavi et al (2012) and Dobell et al (2021) suggests that PE is recognized as an important tool to ensure sufficient physical activity and that PE teachers play an important role in developing students' behaviors, attitudes, skills, and knowledge necessary to establish a lifelong physical activity. Given the enormous impact physical inactivity has in increased global morbidity, mortality, and health care costs, it is important to find strategies to maintain the quality of PE teaching by recruiting and retaining qualified K-12 Physical Education (PE) teachers in the United States (U.S.) Perhaps, understanding the factors associated with job satisfaction or dissatisfaction is one of keys to decrease the high attrition rate.…”