Ní Chróinín, Déirdre and Parker, Melissa and Coulter, Maura and Sweeney, Tony (2024) Teachers learning to use student voice in primary physical education – ready, steady, go! European Physical Education Review. ISSN 1356-336X

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Abstract

Primary physical education lags behind student voice developments in research and practice internationally (Gillett-Swan and Baroutsis, 2023) and in post-primary physical education (Howley and O’Sullivan, 2021; Iannucci and Parker, 2022a). Furthermore, evidence is lacking on how to guide primary teachers learning to implement student voice pedagogies in physical education successfully. This research begins to fill this gap by focusing on the research question: What direction can be taken from primary teachers’ experiences of learning to enact student voice in physical education? Insight on what mattered in teachers’ learning to enact student voice can guide how to promote student voice pedagogies as everyday primary physical education pedagogies. Within a professional learning community (n=10), nine primary teachers enacted student voice pedagogical strategies over a six-month period. Data sources included recordings of monthly collective meetings with teachers (n=7), mid-point (n=4) and/or end-point (n=6) individual interviews with the teachers, blog posts (n=2), conference presentations (n=2), and three focus groups with children (n=12). Drawing on teachers’ and children’s experiences, a roadmap for teachers getting started with enactment of student voice pedagogies is presented with attention to: starting small, starting smart, and not stopping. Teachers valued the outcomes of enactment of student voice pedagogies for the children in their classes in ways that changed their teaching approaches and sustained their commitment to student voice pedagogies. The roadmap presented can be used to support teachers learning how to enact student voice as an everyday pedagogy in primary physical education.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Democratic; student choice; teacher learning; continuing professional development; collaboration;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Froebel Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education
Item ID:	18580
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1177/1356336X241257455
Depositing User:	Tony Sweeney
Date Deposited:	28 May 2024 10:30
Journal or Publication Title:	European Physical Education Review
Publisher:	Sage
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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