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The playing of games has been a long standing tradition in physical education. Yet despite its history, the teaching of games within primary physical education lessons remains something of a weakness. This is most evident through a continued focus upon skill acquisition and a lack of fostering of a real 'tactical understanding' of game play. Despite attempts to rectify this issue through the development of instructional models, a lack of conceptual clarity remains. This paper proposes a framework that goes some way to rectify this ambiguity by proposing to focus upon what are referred to as 'Principles of Play'. It is recommended that this approach should become the focus when conceptualising what constitutes primary games lessons.

Background: Crum proposes the term ‘movement culture’ as a means to best understand the relationships between PE and wider movement practices. Learning within movement culture is practical and embodied, and integral to the cultural and institutional contexts within which PE is situated. Purpose: Using visual data gathered from PE lessons within a UK primary school this paper aims to identify movement cultures across the observed PE lessons, and understand how these movement cultures are shaped and maintained by analysing how teachers and pupils' actions-in-on-going-events make the movement cultures something ‘in-common’. Participants, research design and data collection: A mixture of Year 5 and 6 PE lessons were video recorded within a primary school in the West Midlands. Careful attention was paid to the ethical considerations involved in the collection and storage of the data. Data analysis: By dissolving the dualism between an individual and their environment, Dewey and Bentley's (1949/1991) transactional theory of learning supports an analysis of action in context. Application of this theory enables the researcher to explore actions-in-on-going activities and understand how this action shapes the movement culture within which it occurs. In this process we did not use theory to deduce the participants' intentions or potential changes in their cognitive structures; rather it was the functions' actions constituted in the observed situation, which lead the analysis. Findings: The existence of a multi-activity idea of sampling different sports within this study of primary PE amounted to eating from a smorgasbord where the flavours of the dishes initially looked different, but actually tasted the same. Each dish was differentiated by the use of contrasting equipment, physical locations and named activities. In reality what was realised was a diluted, repetitive and overriding flavour of looks-like-sport. Pupils were tasked with actions which functioned to produce a stage managed show of controlled activity. This was supplemented by their compliance to strict behaviour codes and by attempting to make highly cooperative tasks and games work. This was aided by the adoption and acceptance of different roles. Succeeding within this movement culture demanded an implicit understanding of the need to coordinate actions with others cooperatively. Conclusions: The standout flavour within this smorgasbord involved gymnastics, where the removal of competition and provision of space for pupils to re-actualise their knowledge, created an interesting blend of pupil engagement, sustained physical activity, creativity, inclusion and cooperation. These interesting flavours may have been curtailed by a need to replicate movements acceptable to doing gymnastics-for-real and suggests that other forms of looks-like-sport may have the potential to elicit similar action. Continued investigation of the directions of actions-in-context-in-PE-settings would aid our understanding of the creation, nature and reproduction of learning experience...

The purpose of this study was to privilege the views of both pupils and staff in one school's adoption of the Daily Mile Challenge (DMC). Listening seriously to the views of pupils, who are often the unheard subjects in whole school exercise interventions, the aim was to understand the meanings derived from the requirement to practice the DMC. Data are drawn from non-participant observations, 4 individual teacher interviews and 4 pupil focus groups with a total of 12 students. In order to understand the function of the DMC to its participants, a sociocultural position was adopted using Dewey's ends-in-view to analyse the data. This process revealed that complete adaptation of the DMC in name and form created an indeterminate space both for the teachers and pupils; an in-between space of not-classroom, not-break-time, not-running and not-a-mile. This allowed the DMC to be completed when teachers could fit it in to their teaching, which was not on a daily or a regular basis. This inbetween negotiated space formed the overarching landscape of the DMC. For the teachers, promoting purpose through moving in an orderly fashion was characterised by looking-like the DMC. Within this end-in-view the pupils had to find an acceptable way to take a moving break. Rather than address unfounded concerns about fitness and risks of obesity the DMC in this school has inadvertently highlighted an important need; for pupils to have an outside break from pressurised classroom performances and have more opportunities for quality social interactions.

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