An introduction to new PE-for-health pedagogies, approaches and models

Promoting lifelong participation in physical activity is perceived as a key goal of Physical Education (PE). However, due to historical issues such as poor teacher preparation and some questionable practice, PE has largely failed in the achievement of this goal. Given that whole-school approaches to health and physical activity promotion are increasingly viewed as a global priority to help address the multiple influences on young people’s physical activity behaviour, there is a clear need to challenge the traditional approaches and to champion alternatives. This need endures, despite numerous interventions to stimulate sustained change in teachers’ practice. Importantly, multi-component approaches have shown real promise in their potential impact on health and physical activity outcomes for young people. In this chapter several multi-component approaches are explored, before Models-based Practice (MbP) and pedagogical models are focussed on as the ‘organising centre’ for curriculum design. To conclude Health-based PE is presented as a model which centrally positions valuing a physically active life as its main idea and provides an evidence-informed, flexible framework for teaching health-related PE.