The “Ofek Hadash” (New Horizon) agreement was signed between the Israeli government and the Teachers’ Union representing all teachers in state and state religious elementary schools in Israel. The aims of the reform were: to narrow gaps in education, to improve pupils’ achievements, to promote and nurture children with learning difficulties as well as outstanding pupils, to provide fair recompense to teachers, and to strengthen teachers’ status in society (Teachers’ Union and State of Israel, 2008).

 In essence, the reform upgrades the teachers’ salaries and promotion scale, and specifies the exact number of frontal hours teachers must teach, the number of individualized hours they must work, and the number of hours they must stay in school (New Horizon Agreement, clause 30, p. 11). Additionally, the reform contains clauses that signify substantial changes in teachers’ working conditions.

At the time the data were collected New Horizon was in the “transition stage”, as schools were moving from traditional work conditions to the new ones. Transitions periods in general are crucial, problematic, and sensitive. Employees must abandon long-ingrained work patterns and adopt new procedures and processes. Transitions entail ambiguity and uncertainty, which almost always make the change process more difficult (Samuel, 1996).

Opposition to change is a familiar phenomenon in organizations. It stems from the fear of losing one’s “security blanket” – a familiar situation with known “rules”, and having to cope with a new situation (Fullan, 2001; Greenberg & Baron, 2000).

Natural resistance to change may hinder a well-planned change and upset its orderly implementation, thereby precluding its completion. Senior managers often do not correctly assess the many ways in which people respond to organizational change. As a result, they are unable to implement their goals, the final results differ from those that were planned, and further fears develop that reinforce opposition to change (O’Brien, 2008). This is especially true in schools. Therefore, it is important how principals perceive the change process and the factors involved in its success or failure.       

The Israel National Institute for Testing in Education (NITE) has been evaluating the New Horizon reform since its inception in the 2007-8 school year. The NITE report did not refer specifically to subject teachers but only to the subjects evaluated in the national tests. Despite the uniqueness of Physical Education (PE) as a subject, reform implementation in PE was not examined, nor was attention paid to how, if at all, PE teachers were prepared for the New Horizon change and how their opposition to it was overcome.

Therefore, this study' goals were as follows: 1) To clarify the ways in which Ofek Hadash was implemented among PE teachers; 2) To examine the attitudes of PE teachers to the reform; and 3) To examine the PE teachers’ attitudes to the change entailed in the implementation the reform.

Fullan, M. (2001). Learning in a culture of change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Greenberg, J., & Baron, R. A. (2000). Behavior in organizations (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. O'Brien J. M. (2008). Five approaches to leading successful organizational change. Healthcare Financial Management, 62(9), 138. Samuel, I. (1996). Organizations – Characteristics, structures and processes (2nd ed.). Tel-Aviv: Zmora-Bitan. (Hebrew) Teachers’ Union and State of Israel (2008). Ofek Hadash reform agreement between Teachers' Union and Government of Israel. Hebrew http://cms.education.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/A450C710-9D25-42E8-A7AF-444482E325FF/87491/heskemreforma.doc