Abstract:
The Board of Senior Secondary School Studies (BSSSS) in Queensland has recently approved the trial of a new syllabus in Senior Physical Education. The BSSSS endorsed the intellectual rigour of this practically based subject and agreed that students' results would 'count' equally, for tertiary entrance score purposes, with the other traditional academic subjects. Part one of this presentation describes the development and the practical nature of this Senior PE syllabus and recounts the attempts of the syllabus developers to counter the conventional hierarchical order of knowledge and the orthodoxy that physical activity involves little cognition. Part two reports on the progress of the syllabus's implementation. Quantitative and qualitative data, with a focus on the trial school teachers and students, shall be presented. Concerns pertaining to the participating student population, integration of learning experiences, syllabus structure, comparability, and enjoyment of the subject by teachers and students, shall be highlighted.