Upper primary students’ attitudes toward physical education in New South Wales

The development of the Australian National Curriculum and increasing emphasis on high-stakes testing has caused a radical upheaval of Australian education. While the history of this period is yet to be written it is clear that Australian education has been considerably transformed. Like all key learning areas, Health and Physical Education (HPE) have been scrutinised and significant debates have been raised in both popular media and the academic domain as to the impacts of such upheaval. Contemporary Australian Physical Education (PE) research pays particular attention to issues such as curriculum content,2 pedagogy3 and teacher training,4 yet surprisingly there has been no voice given to students, the key stakeholders in education. PE remains under scrutiny which necessitates that students are given a voice to ensure curricular decisions suit their needs. As an area of Australian education research, PE has to date neglected this student voice and in particular, that of primary students.