Epi Phys Ed

As this week is Anti-bullying week, I feel it necessary to highlight the impact that bullying can have on both the agonist and the antagonist.  Rigby, K  et al’s.  (2004) below summary highlights this well:   A brief historical background –  Over the last two decades, bullying in schools has become an issue of widespread concern (Smith, Morita, Junger-Tas, Olweus, Catalano and Slee, 1999). This is not to say that in earlier times bullying in schools was ignored. There was much animated public discussion of bullying in English private schools in the mid-nineteenth century following the publication of the famous novel  Tom Brown's school days  (Hughes, 1857). This book evoked strong expressions of abhorrence towards, and condemnation of, the practice of bullying, and various suggestions were made on how it could be countered (see Rigby, 1997). However, the systematic examination of the nature and prevalence of school bullying only began with the work of ...

Comparison with other countries on the narrow set of subjects that PISA (and the UK education system) focuses on (Mathematics, Science and Literacy) (OECD.org 2020), is not the correct way to gain a full picture of how successful countries are. This area of analysis and comparison only looks at pupils’ attainment, and in a small range of subjects which highlights ‘success’ from a neoliberal perspective. Alternatively, it could be more appropriate to measure student ‘success’ holistically based on criteria such as happiness, well-being, and mental health, perhaps under the umbrella of social development. For example, analysis using World Bank figures show that the five countries with the largest economies (Howmuch.net, 2018) do not score highly on the World Happiness Report (Helliwell et al, 2020), nor do they score highly in the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Well-being of Children Report Card 13 (2016). In both tables (focusing on Social Development based criteria) the leadin...

Ernst and Burcak (2019) stress   “the importance of using the natural world and natural materials for open-ended exploration, discovery, and creativity”   (2019, p. 2).   It is important to produce a setting that allows pupils to develop their problem-solving skills, initiative and self-efficacy (Wright and Masten, 2005). This environment must be carefully constructed as  “children need an environment in which they can flourish and grow and develop positive self-esteem”  (Williams-Siegfredsen, 2017, p. 18). The current marketized economy driven education system is just not fitting for the long term, as it does not take into account cognitive emotional development.  There have been many advocates for Outdoor Learning, and three pioneers of the development of a child lead learning system were Montessori, Froebel and Sørensen. Montessori focused on  “allow[ing] the children to see their own mistakes and learn by voluntary repetition”  (Lillard, 2018,...

What is the position of Physical Education and Outdoor Learning?  There have been a variety of PE frameworks created in the last 40 years, from Bunker and Thorpe in 1982 (Griffin and Butler, 2005) focusing on developing skill through playing games; to, Siedentop (1994) using a variety of roles within sport for example participant, coach, captain. Thorburn and Horrell (2014) describe these as  operational ideas  of PE and outdoor learning, “developing talent [instead of] developing physical literacy and self-esteem” (p.622). Little has been discussed in recent decades that promote the wider responsibilities and benefits of PEOL learning other than the physical, thereby neglecting its role to develop social, emotional and environmental skills. The impact of COVID has highlighted the importance of being healthy in a holistic sense, and the importance of PEOL on primary school children to tackle physical and mental health as well as increase improve social skills, nature conn...