Making Sense of the Big Picture: What the Literature Says

This book uses the example of a partnership journey between universities, schools, the local health industry as well as a number of government organisations which worked to ensure the growth of physical education in primary education. The initiative employed the United Nations (UN) ideals as a model and contextualised them within local schools and communities. What began as a pathway seed quickly grew to involve multi-stakeholder partnerships and therefore explores how the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) may be implemented at a grass roots level.Community partnerships are not a new concept. What is known is that partnerships are contextual, and therefore, no partnerships are the same. Hence, the purpose of this chapter is to investigate what research suggests to enhance successful partnerships. From a ‘futures perspective’, partnerships are ideal for implementing education curricula, and megatrends predict that in the future, education departments need to be prepared for a quality of life with limited world resources and increased significance of social relationships. Specifically within teacher education, literature suggests there are three elements for successful partnerships between schools and universities: coherence and integration, professional experience that links the theory with practice, and new relationships. Successful partnerships that espouse these elements increase the chance of reaching the hybrid space ideal

Exploring religious education and health and physical education key learning area connections in primary schools.

This study explored if connections were made by teachers and students in schools between religious education (RE) and health and physical education (HPE) key learning areas (KLA). The research was conducted within three Brisbane (Queensland, Australia) Catholic primary schools of varying enrolment size. It is argued that within Catholic education, the HPE curriculum documents are strongly connected to the RE curriculum material (Lynch 2004). The spiritual dimension of the HPE curriculum is defined in the syllabus as the “sense of connection to phenomena and unusual events beyond self and usual sensory and rational existence; a sense of place within the universe” (Queensland School Curriculum Council 1999, 26). The three strands of HPE: personal development; developing the concepts and skills for physical activities; and promoting the health of individuals and communities can all be affiliated closely with the RE curriculum. Furthermore, under the HPE umbrella, physical education sits alongside health education, outdoor education, home economics, and RE (Macdonald 2003; Macdonald and Glover 1997). In primary schools, physical learning and physical activities are valuable components of the students’ and school culture. Christian spirituality is the essential link between faith and culture (Gallagher 1997). Hence, it is logical that the learning area for "learning in, through and about movement", HPE, may offer opportunities for Catholic schools to develop Christian spirituality usually associated with the RE learning area. As Buchanan and Hyde (2008, 310) share, “religious education is one field of study that can effectively address the complementarity between cognitive, affective and spiritual dimensions of learning”. Qualitative research investigating RE development through HPE learning experiences was conducted. Participants included teachers and students from the three respective schools. The research concluded that well implemented quality inclusive physical activities within HPE lessons increased participant’s connections between the two key learning areas

Context of Partnerships

This book uses the example of a partnership journey between universities, schools, the local health industry as well as a number of government organisations which worked to ensure the growth of physical education in primary education. The initiative employed the United Nations (UN) ideals as a model and contextualised them within local schools and communities. What began as a pathway seed quickly grew to involve multi-stakeholder partnerships and therefore explores how the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) may be implemented at a grass roots level.Sustainability of partnerships requires problem solving, which considers ‘context’. The context setting within this partnership was Latrobe Valley, Gippsland (Victoria, Australia), but it was also heavily influenced at the time by the Australian national curriculum reform and national HW & PE initiatives. The national curriculum was underpinned by the socio-cultural perspective and explicitly espoused the permeation of a ‘futures perspective’ in health, quality teaching, and teacher education. What began as a pathway seed quickly grew to involve multi-stakeholder partnerships; Australian universities, schools, Australian Registered Training Organisations (RTO), the local health industry (local leisure, and sports centre), Education departments, sport governing bodies at the national level, and a world leading international Initial Teacher Education (ITE) university course in the UK

Introduction

This book uses the example of a partnership journey between universities, schools, the local health industry as well as a number of government organisations which worked to ensure the growth of physical education in primary education. The initiative employed the United Nations (UN) ideals as a model and contextualised them within local schools and communities. What began as a pathway seed quickly grew to involve multi-stakeholder partnerships and therefore explores how the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) may be implemented at a grass roots level.This chapter introduces the partnership story, offering guidance to various local and global community stakeholders in understanding contemporary directions and future priorities for Health, Wellbeing, and Physical Education (HW & PE). According to the United Nations (UN), ‘partnerships’ are essential for implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), and subsequently, continued efforts towards equality in health and wellbeing. Hence, the partnership journey is significant as it offers insight to the future of HW & PE. This story is timely as ground level ‘partnerships in action’ forms a present gap in research

Swimming and water safety: reaching all children in Australian primary schools.

Data gathered indicate that reductions in annual Australian drowning fatalities for not only children, but people of all ages, have hit a plateau, and if anything, figures suggest that fatal drownings in recent years are on the increase. It is alarm- ing that figures are not falling despite the many well-developed swimming and water safety education programs available. The number of drowning deaths in Australia is regarded by governing bodies as far too many, hence it is proposed that the necessary changes required to further reduce drowning may involve teachers within primary schools being used more efficiently in the educational process. This paper concludes that by implementing swimming and water safety with conviction into the school curriculum, all students will become more aware of drowning risk behaviors, thus successfully decreasing drowning fatalities in both the short and long terms

Global Community Partnership Research

This book uses the example of a partnership journey between universities, schools, the local health industry as well as a number of government organisations which worked to ensure the growth of physical education in primary education. The initiative employed the United Nations (UN) ideals as a model and contextualised them within local schools and communities. What began as a pathway seed quickly grew to involve multi-stakeholder partnerships and therefore explores how the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) may be implemented at a grass roots level.This chapter investigates a successful teacher education programme in the UK, awarded ‘Outstanding’ by England’s Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. Furthermore, the success of the programme was explicitly contributed by established partnerships with nearby schools. This course, at the time, was not offered within Australia. This study offered valuable insight into a successful primary teacher education programme/course, illustrated good practice, and subsequently, offered possible improvements to the preparation of pre-service primary teachers in Gippsland, Australia