ePolitix.com spoke to Margaret Talbot, chief executive of the Association for Physical Education (AfPE), about the Olympic Bid, the association's engagements for this year and the work it is doing with the Ethnic Minority Foundation.

Question: What are the primary goals of the AfPE?

Margaret Talbot: The AfPE is committed to being the UK representative organisation of choice for people and agencies delivering or supporting the delivery of physical education in schools and in the wider community. 

Its corporate objectives are to:

1. Demonstrate the distinctive role of physical education in children’s and young people’s development and achievements.

2. Establish and sustain physical education at the heart of school life and whole-school development, through support for high quality learning and teaching, research, ethical leadership and politically-informed advocacy and representation.

3. Raise awareness of physical education’s positive contributions to public health and well-being.

4. Play a leading role in the development of a workforce with the skills and qualities required to assure high quality physical education, sport in schools and in the wider community.

5. Provide high quality, professional, sustainable services for its members and partners.

These are reflected in four main areas of activity:

A. Advocacy and Influence
B. Professional Leadership
C. Membership Services
D. Organisational development and capacity building

Question: What are the most pressing issues for your members?

Margaret Talbot: To secure sustainable, long-term investment in curricular physical education, through ensuring:

• An adequate supply of appropriately trained teachers, across the whole National Curriculum age range (five to 16); and enhanced provision for early years and 16-19 year olds. This will require that the systemic weakness in initial training for primary teachers be addressed by the Training and Development Agency (see section on government initiatives, below).

• Tangible commitment to ensure sufficient curriculum time for all children and young people to learn the skills and confidence for lifelong participation in physical activity, dance or sport.

• That every school, whether primary, secondary or special, has an adequate budget to support teachers’ continuous professional development, and to buy and maintain appropriate equipment and facilities for physical education.

• A coordinated strategy to address the issues of child health and well being, through promoting physically active schools and to adopt the multi-agency approaches, which are necessary to address the challenges of childhood and adult obesity.

• A strategy to encourage and support physical education as a lifelong learning process. This will require multi-departmental collaboration and appropriate focus on the needs of people around and beyond retirement age, in recognition of the needs of the largest age group in the UK population.

Question: Are there any initiatives you would like the government to consider?

Margaret Talbot:  It would be good to see the Training and Development Agency, which is responsible for teacher workforce planning and development, taking more seriously, the issue of non-compliance among some providers of initial teacher training for primary physical education. 

We estimate that more than 40 per cent of all newly-qualified primary teachers are starting work in schools, with only six hours’ worth of preparation to teach physical education, or in some cases, even less. 

This is a national scandal, and cannot possibly be defended as adequate preparation for young teachers. There are serious issues of quality and health and safety. 

If some providers of initial trainers can allocate 30 hours or more (the recommended minimum by the National Summit on Physical Education in 2005), then so can all providers, even within postgraduate certificate in education courses, which are very short of contact time. This systemic weakness is the most serious fault in the delivery system. 

AfPE has been advised of the likelihood of litigation against initial training providers, should the cause of any accident involving a newly qualified teacher, be traced to a newly-qualified teacher’s inadequate training.

This relates, in turn, to the fact that some primary school head teachers, because so few primary teachers have received adequate initial training, are beginning to deploy people to deliver national curriculum physical education, who are neither qualified, nor appropriate to do so.

Despite the clear guidance which AfPE has provided (see www.afpe.org.uk ), AfPE is aware that some agencies are claiming to be able to deliver the national curriculum 'through football' or other single activities.  This flies in the face of the statutory requirement for delivery across programmes of study, and for broad and balanced learning experiences. 

It is worth noting that the Welsh Assembly government has made an unequivocal statement that the physical education curriculum should be delivered by qualified teachers, in the context of a warm welcome for the extension and enrichment to the curriculum and out of hours learning, which colleagues from coaching, leadership and sports development, can offer. 

AfPE will bring this excellent statement to the notice of the other three home country governments’ education ministers.

AfPE will be leading a national awareness campaign about these issues which affect UK primary school physical education so seriously, during summer 2007.

Question: What legacy would you like to see the 2012 Olympics provide for physical education in the UK?

Margaret Talbot: The case which was made by the 2012 bid for London was compelling, based, as it was, on the legacy to which the bid was committed, of inspiring and motivating more young people to participate and excel in sport; and of establishing a world-class system which would encourage and support their participation and achievement.

AfPE wholeheartedly supports this ambition, but is concerned that the 2012 team responsible for the education aspects of the Olympics and Paralympics, has virtually no budget for development, or for establishing the kind of infrastructure and capacity-building which will be needed. 

It is particularly disappointing that, although there are efforts to recruit and develop volunteers, there has been almost no investment in, or even discussion of, the organisations and leaders who will be required to sustain volunteering, once the Games are over.

Lastly, sport strategy still is being developed in silos, with significant investment into school physical education and sport, which is also supported by educational infrastructure; but limited investment into infrastructure and capacity for community sport.

There is still time to bring together all the agencies which need to play their parts in establishing a sustainable, high quality sporting system for children, young people and adults, serviced by well-qualified people (both paid and voluntary) and operating in attractive, well-maintained facilities. 

But it will require UK government (not Lottery) investment into sport to be increased to match that of other countries, comparable with our own.

Question: What initiatives will the AfPE be engaged in this year?

Margaret Talbot: See the section above, on initial teacher training for primary teachers. We will be leading a media campaign to raise awareness of the deficiencies in the current system, which means that far too many newly-qualified primary teachers, through no fault of their own, lack the skills and confidence to deliver physical education to children in primary schools – just at the age when they most need and welcome it.

We expect to involve a range of parents of children of primary school age, since a national market research survey conducted on our behalf by Sports Marketing Surveys Ltd has demonstrated that the vast majority of parents see physical education as vital for their children’s development and want their children to experience quality programmes, delivered by well-qualified teachers, within curriculum time.

One of the most exciting opportunities we have this coming year, is our work with Sportscoach UK, which aims to establish a new national framework for all work in sport and physical activity with children of 11 and less. 

This will bring about a sea change in the quality of provision for young children, based on sound pedagogical principles, which will be shared by everyone working with children; whether as teachers, coaches, leaders, instructors or development officers.

In collaboration with the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), and with partner organisations, AfPE will be helping to prepare teachers and schools for the implementation of the new secondary curriculum in September 2008. 

As part of this programme, it is the intention that practical work in physical education will be evaluated using shared, rigorous criteria, which will demonstrate the value of the subject in developing skills and understanding which are beyond the normal 'academic' areas of achievement.

With the other subject associations, AfPE is committed to the establishment of the Council for Subject Associations, whose first two years is being financially supported by the DCSF. 

We believe that a coordinated approach and website will significantly help teachers in primary schools, who cannot be expected to become members of every subject association. 

In recognition of this, AfPE is launching in September 2007, a new membership category for primary schools.

AfPE will also be raising awareness of the role of physical education teachers in promoting health through physical activity and leading the development of programmes for teachers and trainee teachers, to equip them for this vital role.

Lastly, through its National College for Continuing Professional Development, AfPE will provide innovative courses, resources and materials to support the physical education and school sport workforce.

Question: Can you tell me about the work you are carrying out with the Ethnic Minority Foundation (EMF)? What do you hope to achieve through this work?

Margaret Talbot: This is a partnership project, funded by Capacitybuilders’ Improving Reach programme. We were concerned that, as a subject association, we seemed to have very few members from minority ethnic and black backgrounds. 

When we managed to obtain some data from the Training and Development Agency, whose role is to plan for the workforce needs of teaching, we were shocked to see that physical education has the lowest percentage recruitment of all national curriculum subjects from black and minority ethnic groups - only two percent. 

We looked at other sources of data and the overall picture was the same. And we were shocked that, when we raised our concerns with the Training and Development Agency, we found that there were no plans to address this, because “physical education is not a shortage subject”. 

Since the percentage of black and minority ethnic children in English schools is now 35 per cent, we felt that this issue needed to be addressed.

So we approached the EMF to see if colleagues there would be interested in a project whose purpose is to raise awareness and encourage action among both the universities and colleges providing specialist teacher training in physical education and the voluntary organisations which provide careers advice for young people of black and minority ethnic origin.

We believe that both we and the EMF have learned a great deal from each other during this partnership and look forward to concrete outcomes like mentoring schemes and better informed advice on the advantages of careers in teaching physical education. 

We look forward to being able to develop the project to address opportunities in teaching other subjects, so that a more diverse teaching workforce can be provided.

Question: Do you have any final messages for ePolitix.com's readers?

Margaret Talbot: The UK is the envy of physical education and sport leaders from countries across the world, because we have achieved a status for physical education which many of them cannot even dream of. 

Here, national curriculum physical education is a statutory entitlement for all children aged five to 16. 

While there remain weaknesses in our delivery system, this statutory status means that all children have the opportunity to learn the skills, confidence and understanding they need for lifelong participation in physical activity, dance and sport. 

The AfPE will do all that we can to protect and promote the importance of that status, and to ensure that physical education is appropriate and meaningful for all children and young people, and that their learning is supported by the highest possible quality of teaching.