Primary physical education in a complex world (part 3): Teachers’ professional learning

This is the third in our series of articles exploring the future of primary physical education through a complexity lens. Building on the ideas presented in the first two articles, we now turn to the professional learning of those who teach primary physical education. Specifically, the article considers how primary teachers can be supported to teach using the complexity-informed ‘pedagogy of emergence’discussed in article 2 of the series. ‘Pedagogy of emergence’ sees teachers move beyond a traditional ‘pedagogy of certainty’ by working to identify children’s different starting points;create flexible learning intentions;design learning tasks for efficiency, adaptability and creativity; modify boundaries to consolidate and challenge children’s learning and support their creativity; and signpost connections. To discuss how complexity thinking can help frame this shift in teacher’s professional learning in primary physical education, we focus on 4 interrelated topics:the challenges and drawbacks of the traditional approach to professional development; teachers as complex professional learners; complex professional learning in primary physical education and future considerations for primary physical education professional learning.