Primary school physical education in outdoor during COVID-19 pandemic: The perceptions of teachers

Abstract

In Italy since February 2020 and still currently, schools of all levels throughout the National territory have carried out their activities alternating distance teaching with face-to-face one, with the relative adaptations due to the online and face-to-face mode in compliance with the health safety protocols. Teachers had to make substantial changes to their teaching/learning design and, to deal with this issue, the permanent training activities in service are fundamental. Physical education is one of the teaching subjects that most needs to be adapted in design and outdoor movement education seems to be a good practice to be developed to offer new ideas for teaching/learning planning. The aim is to detect the opinions of primary school teachers in order to offer effective contents of the permanent training about physical education during pandemic and to promote teaching methods of physical education in primary school moreover on outdoor education. The results show how active are teachers, where they practice, how the pandemic and the smart configuration of life affected their lifestyles, what are their perceptions and perspectives about outdoor physical education and its importance for the achievement of children movement development goal. The collected data revealed an high recognition of the contribution that physical education offers to the achievement of skills development goals but at the same time emerge specific training needs in teaching methods of physical education.