Student voice has become increasingly prominent within educational research and practice, with many international curricula mandating for the enactment of student voice practices within the classroom. The physical education (PE) sphere is no exception, with student voice positioned as the solution to the disengagement problems long associated with PE. Student voice offers a method by which PE can be made more engaging and meaningful for students. However, the how of student voice remains a fuzzy concept, particularly at primary level. How best can we support the voices of children in making informed decisions about their PE experience, with the ultimate goal of nurturing meaningful experiences?
I am a generalist classroom teacher in Ireland, and as part of my PhD research, I aimed to investigate the role of student voice pedagogies in promoting meaningful experiences in PE. Through a self-study approach, I researched my own experience in enacting student voice pedagogies in my primary PE practice (Cardiff et al., in press). I also explored and collated data on my 5th-class students’ (10–11 years old) experience of student voice pedagogies in PE (Cardiff et al., 2023).
Guided by the Meaningful PE framework (Fletcher et al., 2021) and Lundy’s (2007) model of participation, I began to implement a more democratic approach within my lessons. I started with closed choices: for example, the children were encouraged to pick a warm-up game from three choices given or select the order of the activities completed in lessons. Gradually, as I observed the children’s enthusiasm for shared decision-making, I began to use more open-ended choices in PE. The children were encouraged to alter the challenge level of tasks to match their ability and were facilitated in choosing groups that worked for them. A 5–10-minute period of personal practice time was offered in lessons, in which the children could work on a skill of their choosing within the topic being covered. The help of the children was also enlisted in creating and directing new games and activities; a responsibility which was taken very seriously by the children.
