PhysEd – Academy

The PhysEd-Academy project is an Erasmus+ funded teacher academy, bringing together teacher educators and teachers from seven European countries to facilitate radical change in physical education in both teacher education programmes and schools. PhysEd-Academy starts from the premise that the field of physical education is built on old and inefficient traditions that are not aligned with current recommended practices and policies, resulting in Physical Education (PE) and Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) having little or no impact on children and youth. Recognising the need for change, the PhysEd-Academy project aims to address current challenges in the field of PE by improving four quality factors in PE: objectives and content, school teaching, teacher education and teachers’ continuous professional development (CPD). The objective of the project is to improve the quality of education in Physical Education (PE) and Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) through an innovative conceptualisation of the processes of teaching and teacher education that challenges the notions of teachers and teacher educators working in different domains; it aims to identify new ways of thinking about how teachers and teacher educators can occupy the same space. By directly addressing the four quality factors and drawing on current evidence from PE and teacher education research, practice and theory, PhysEd-Academy will develop and test innovative strategies and programmes for initial PE teacher education and continuing teacher education (CPD) across Europe. This will lead to the development of a set of ‘signature pedagogies’ for learning across different PE teacher education programmes that have the potential to improve the quality of PE and PE teacher education. The signature pedagogies will be piloted internationally by the PhysEd-Academy partners in their respective initial teacher education and CPD programmes to enhance the attractiveness of the PE teaching profession and to help identify connections between teacher education and student outcomes. PhysEd-Academy is committed to becoming a key factor in the improvement of PE and PE teacher education and will benefit local, regional, and international school PE and teacher education programmes – with the ultimate aim of improving public health.