In Norway physical education [PE] is anchored in a national curriculum for 1^st to 13^th grade. The national curriculum expresses which competencies the students are supposed to acquire through their education (Udir, 2015). The curriculum in physical education [PE] identifies the competence aims of the subject, and thus makes up the central premises for teaching and learning in PE.

One challenge in PE is that students` learning has not been the teachers` first priority (Kirk, 2010). Kirk names several alternative objectives for PE that have been identified in the field, e.g. PE being a break from other (academic) subjects and representing a context where the students can have fun and enjoy themselves, offering opportunities for socialising and keeping fit (2010). Consequently, the teachers measure their own competencies as PE teachers to the criteria of their students being `busy, happy and good` (Kirk. 2010, p. 61).  Studies in Norway and Sweden show the same tendency where PE teachers focus more on activity than learning in the subject, and learning aims seems to be more absent (Annerstedt, 2008; Larsson & Karlefors, 2015).

Moen, Westlie, Bjørke and Brattlis` (2018) national survey on primary and secondary school in Norway, involving both students, teachers and school leaders, gave new insights on the PE situation in Norway. Findings from the study show that PE continues to be traditionally with the same content throughout the thirteen years of education, and that the students perceive the educational goals in the subject as vague.

International research has shown poor quality of primary PE, (Carse, Jess & Keay (2018), that the curriculum in PE is being delivered ineffectively (Griggs, 2007), and that the subject replicate its practice and reaffirms the four memes `sport as techniques`, anyone can teach it`, `busy, good and happy`, `nowhere important` (Ward & Griggs, 2018). Existing research in Norway shows that there have been conducted several studies on PE, but research on the youngest students in primary school, that is students in 1<sup>st</sup> to 4<sup>th</sup> grade, is to my knowledge absent, which is also the case with research on learning in PE from a teachers` perspective.

Thus, this study is concerned with learning in primary physical education in 1^st to 4^th grade, and the research question to be answered in the paper is:

What do teachers who teach PE in 1^st to 4^th grade (aged 6 to 10 years) express that the students shall learn in PE?

To investigate this research question it seems relevant to lean on P.J. Arnolds` work on how we can understand learning in practical subjects (Arnold, 1988, 1991). Arnold (1988) meant that practical knowledge was just as important as theoretical knowledge in the development of the whole human being. Arnolds` three-dimensional model for teaching movement in PE contains of three different dimensions for teaching and movement, which are learning about-, in- and through- movement. Learning about movement examines theoretical aspects of movement, like subjects to be studies, for example motor learning. Learning in movement is about the intrinsic and valuable aspect of movement where the activities are worthwhile in and of themselves. An example on learning in movement is someone swimming for the fun and enjoyment of it, and finding the pleasure in movement. The through- dimension, on the other hand, is instrumental, which means that the activity is used as a means to reach an external aim outside oneself, e.g. fitness and a healthy-looking body. Arnolds` theoretical perspectives on these three dimensions can help illuminate what primary PE teachers express, and will be the basis for the analysis of the teachers` expressions on learning in PE 1th to 4^th grade.

This paper is part of a research project addressing teaching and learning PE in 1st to 4th grade in Norway. Based on the problems to be addressed in the research project, and its research questions, a holistic multiple case design has been chosen. This means that the design contains more than one case. Each case is initially covered as a single- case study, before findings and conclusions are compiled across the individual case studies. Holistic means that there are no subunits within the cases (Yin, 2009). A holistic multiple case design enables the researcher to attend holistic and meaningful descriptions from reality (Yin, 2009). To generate knowledge about PE in school at 1st to 4th grade on an overall level, the study will cover more schools (four) in full, at the same time as each school makes up one holistic case each. The case study has consisted of four different schools, both primary schools and combined primary and secondary schools, in the Eastern region of Norway. These schools were strategically sampled for the purpose of the study. Selection criteria for the sample was for the schools to have students in 1st to 4th, including both central and decentralized schools. The teachers were selected in order to differ in gender, age, experiences as a teacher, educational background and sport background. The sample size was originally planned to consist of six schools, but because of saturation the data collection was ended after the forth school. Thus, the sample consisted of four schools, and the headmaster at each of these schools, in addition to four teachers at school one, four teachers at school two, five teachers at school three and three teachers at school four. To strengthen the results in the case study mixed-methods have been used, combining more than one method in the data collection. These methods are semi-structured interviews of PE teachers (and headmasters), non- participating observations of PE lessons in 1st to 4th grade, document analysis of relevant school documents, and field notes from visits and observations at the schools. In other words, a wide range of data source has been collected. However, in this ECER- presentation I will focus on the data from the semi-structures interviews. The data will be analyzed using qualitative content analysis, which is a procedure for analyzing textual material by coding and categorizing, and systematically describing the meaning of the data (Flick, 2014).

This paper is at an early stage, and the datacollection just recently ended (December 2018). The preliminary analysis are therefore based on what was perceived by the researcher through the interviewing. The preliminary analysis show that the teachers have difficulties in expressing what the students in 1st to 4th grade shall learn in PE and that the educational goals aren`t clear to many of the teachers. The teachers express the importance of a lot of physical activity in PE as counterpart to a passive school day, and PE is explained as a welcome break from the more theoretical subjects in school. In the time to come I will do thorough analysis of the data, and apply the theoretical perspective to the analytical work. At the conference, findings from the analysis will be presented to answer the research question in line with the theoretical framework.

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