Developing Child Friendly Environment in Early Childhood Education Classrooms of Physical Education

Abstract

Among all levels of education, Early Childhood Education and Development is considered to be the most critical level for social (relationship to others), emotional (self-image and security), cognitive (thinking and reasoning) and physical development of children. Therefore, the physical education teachers of early years are expected and needed to play a significant role in the teaching and learning process by providing a friendly environment in their schools. The study employed a case study approach. Information was gathered through multiple methods, which included classroom observations, field notes, document analysis, focus group and semi structured interviews. The focus group participants and the interviewees were selected from a variety of stakeholders, which included parents, students and teachers from public sector to get a comprehensive and representative analysis. Informal conversations with different stakeholders and self reflections contributed to clarify different aspects of the issues and findings. In this study I explored teachers role in developing child friendly environment in physical education classrooms. Thus, two female physical education classroom teachers from a public secondary school in Bokaro - Jharkhand (India) of were the primary participants of the study and they taught in early setup. The study revealed that institutional support and monitoring teacher’s personal propensity to learning for improving pupils’ learning, the prior physical education learning experiences and pedagogical content knowledge play an important role in engaging teachers in developing their thinking and teaching practice. The contribution of this thesis is that institutional and socio cultural influences are local, and derive from the Pakistani context, so have a particular significance for designing teacher development programs.