Physical Education: Liberate It Or Confine It To The Gymnasium?

Introduction: Developments to date

In the latter half of 1993, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) established an Advisory Group for the learning area identified as "Health and Physical Well-being" by the Ministry of Education in their New Zealand Curriculum Framework (1993) document. On advice from this Advisory Group, which I chaired, NZQA later changed the name of this learning area to Health and Physical Education. Two writers were appointed for each of these areas. The first, Gilbert Enoka from Hillmorton High School, was appointed for physical education in February 1994. Pauline Dickinson from Pakuranga College was appointed for health in April of the same year.

Each writer had the brief to develop unit standards for the National Qualifications Framework, levels 1–4. It is important to stress that at this stage there had been no ministerial initiative for the development of the curriculum statement for schools in the area of health and physical education. An important consequence of this situation was that both writers, particularly the physical education writer (who had a two month start on the health writer), began to develop unit standards in the absence of any clear ministerial curriculum policy statements.

The situation was rectified to some extent by the Ministry's decision to accelerate the development of the curriculum statement. This was accompanied by a directive from the Ministry to curtail the development of unit standards until the first milestone report on the curriculum statement had been published. The acceleration of the development of this curriculum statement can be largely attributed to questions raised in Parliament about the alarming rates of suicide, sexually transmitted diseases, and alcohol-elated problems amongst New Zealand youth in comparison to other so called developed societies.

In health, the development of unit standards never really got under-way because of this directive. In physical education, their development had progressed to such an extent that initial drafts of standards continued to be circulated to groups throughout the country for comment.

At this time Gilbert Enoka was ready to develop the "matrix" which consisted of the proposed sub-categories of study in physical education and the tentative corresponding titles for each unit standard. However with the hold on any significant developments, no further progress was made.

In mid-1994 the Ministry of Education established a Policy Advisory Group (PAG) for the health and physical well-being learning area. This group was hand picked by the Minister of Education, Dr Lockwood Smith, and they were responsible for the development of policy specifications for the new curriculum statement. This group would also critique and offer advice on developments in the writing process once it got under way. The Minister, on advice from the PAG, decided that the curriculum statement would be called Health and Physical Education. Two principal writers were appointed. These were Gillian Tasker in Health, and myself in Physical Education.

To date, there are no official documents in Health or Physical Education which have been publicly circulated apart from the Policy Specifications for a National Curriculum Statement in Health and Physical Education (1995). Of course the guiding document is that of the New Zealand Curriculum Framework (1993). This article gives specific consideration to aspects of the development of the initial unit standards and selected processes underlying the development of the Draft Health and Physical Education Curriculum Statement submitted to the Ministry of Education in February 1996. It discusses how changes underpinned by New Right philosophies and practices in education have influenced these curriculum developments and the wider thinking in physical education. It analyses how these changes throw into stark relief key pedagogical issues such as the purpose of physical education, the selection of content, the foci of selected content and the wider social contributions that both health and physical education make within the total school curriculum.

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