Monitoring health, activity and fitness in physical education: its current and future state of health

Testing, training and tensions: the expression of health within physical education curricula in secondary schools in England and Wales

“…However, as found before this study (Harris, 1994(Harris, , 1995 and since (Alfrey, Cale & Webb, 2012;Cale, Harris & Chen, 2012), a degree of conceptual confusion was evident in the teachers' understandings of 'health', 'activity' and 'fitness' and their perceptions of health in PE seemed somewhat limited, resulting in the health-related content of their PE programmes being restricted almost solely to 'physical' health. This is disappointing but perhaps not surprising given that, even in countries in which new syllabi prompt broader conceptualisations of health and encourage critical examination of the meaning of health as a social construct, young children's' articulations of health tend to pay limited attention to social, cultural, economic or political factors .…”

“…The common use of fitness testing and circuit training as vehicles through which to teach health in PE in secondary schools in England had been found in a previous study (Harris, 1994(Harris, , 1995(Harris, , 1997 and also in later studies (Alfrey, Cale and Webb, 2012;Cale, Harris & Chen, 2012). However, these activities are not particularly appealing for some young people (Hopple & Graham, 1995;Luke & Sinclair, 1991), especially the least active, fit and healthy who arguably are the very individuals who could benefit the most from being more active.…”

“…This study extended the UK-based research by further exploring the micro-level of individual PE teachers' health-related philosophies, policies and practices, incorporating data from a range of sources, including written documentation, interviews and lesson observations. Since the time of this study, further research in the UK has investigated English secondary PE teachers' experiences, views and understandings of health-related exercise and related CPD (Alfrey, Cale & Webb, 2012) and the monitoring of health, activity and fitness in PE curricula (Cale, Harris & Chen, 2012). In addition, there have been studies about health in PE conducted at a similar micro-level in other countries Burrows & McCormack, 2012;Cliff, 2012;McDermott, 2012;, all of which will be drawn upon when discussing the findings of the current study.…”

Satisfaction and preferences of PE students and the head of the PE department: meeting the new curricular expectations

“…For example, Cale, Harris, & Chen (2014) highlight that many PE teachers' have narrow, limited and even flawed knowledge and understanding of health and/or health promotion and that many deliver a health focus through 'sport', 'performance' and 'fitness' foci which is dominated by practices such as fitness testing. To overcome these challenges and provide students quality physical education, developing the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment all needs to be improved in line with the new law with daily PE in a way which makes a higher level of success and motivation in place (Penney, Brooker, Hay, & Gillespie,…”

“…Many of these progresses revolve around health-related aspects of the curriculum. In England, for example, Cale, Harris and Chen (2014) state that 'various government policies, strategies and responses ... over the years have highlighted schools and PE to be instrumental in addressing health and the focus on health has been strengthened within subsequent revisions of the National Curriculum'. The authors continue that it is not surprising that there is an increasing recognition of the role of schools and PE in promoting health given the growing concerns over young people's health, physical activity and physical fitness levels in recent years.…”