In Ireland there have been developments in the junior cycle programme with the introduction of the Framework for Junior Cycle (NCCA 2014). This includes short courses to be studied by students during the first three years of post-primary education. Physical education has been qualified as a short course and provides the opportunity for physical education to be formally recognized as part of a students' junior cycle experience. Short courses involve 100 hours of learning which, in the case of physical education, will equate to two years of a weekly 80-minute physical education class. Schools (and teachers) can design and implement their own short courses to meet the needs and interests of their students. The development also results in teachers being responsible for the formal assessment of the students who undertake the short course.

System-wide change is the theoretical framework guiding this research (Hargreaves and Shirley, 2009, OECD, 2008, OECD, 2009, McKinsey, 2010, Sahlberg, 2011) and contributes to our understanding of the complex issues that this involves. The NCCA document, Innovation and Identity highlights the importance of the change process for reform in junior cycle education in Ireland. This change process is built on the NCCA’s strategic plan that emphasise the need for change in schools that will impact practice in classrooms and ultimately student learning. The intent of the new junior cycle framework is to place schools, teachers and students at the centre of the change process with flexibility as a critical component.

The junior cycle developments represent fundamental change to the conduct of physical education in Irish schools such change require most teachers ‘to rethink their own practice, construct new classroom roles and expectations about student outcomes, and to teach in ways they have never taught before’ (Darling-Hammond and McLaughlin 2011, 81).  This type of change is hard and complex as it ‘requires teachers to challenge and reconstruct deeply embedded practices and beliefs’ (Vetter 2012, 27). Goodyear and Casey (2013, 2) expound on the intricacy indicating ‘ . . . change lies not only in the desire of the teacher to change but also in the extraneous expectations about the subject, especially what it does and how it does it.’ Furthermore, shifts in teachers’ beliefs and practices are frequently dependent upon their understanding of students’ responses to their changes in pedagogical practices (Deglau and O’Sullivan 2006; Patton and Griffin 2008). It is, however, the alteration of beliefs that represents the most substantial change possible and only when this occurs is fundamental change realized (Fullan 2001).  In adherence with findings from teacher change research, to be useful, the development physical education modules that result in teacher use (and change) need to be designed by teachers, user friendly, realistic and easy to implement. 

The purpose of this study is to investigate the development of physical education short course modules within Irish post-primary schools from the perspective of principals, physical education teachers, school students and teacher education faculty.

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