A Qualitative Evaluation of a Sport in Schools’ Program

This study examines data from a range of stakeholders in one Australian state involved in a year-long trial of a primary school physical education (PE) professional development program that included external sport providers. In this program, the role of the external provider was to increase the amount of time allocated to PE in the curriculum through a school’s sports program, thereby providing an additional scheduled PE class each week. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken post-intervention with the primary school principals, classroom teachers, specialist PE teachers, external providers, and the professional association partner in the project. The data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Findings support existing claims regarding limited communication between external providers and teachers, ambiguity regarding the teaching qualifications of coaches providing PE curriculum experiences, and coaches working in school programs with limited knowledge of appropriate educational peda-gogical practices that match student readiness for learning.