Physical education, sport education and physical activity policies: Teacher knowledge and implementation in their Victorian state secondary school

Despite many worldwide physical education (PE) and physical activity policies targeting children in schools, there is considerable variation between policy and implementation. The purpose of this study was to investigate Victorian state secondary PE teachers' knowledge and implementation of the mandated policy of 100 minutes of PE and 100 minutes of sport education per week across compulsory schooling. An online questionnaire was completed by 115 teachers, 48 percent of whom had correct knowledge of the mandate. Teachers reported compliance to the mandate within their school of between 23 and 33 percent in PE and 2 and 3 percent in sport education across year levels. There were significant associations between school size and reported ability to meet the PE mandate in Year 7 (x2(1) = 4.46, p = 0.035), Year 8 (x2(1) = 4.97, p = 0.026) and Year 9 (x2(1) = 4.24, p = 0.039). In summary, findings suggest that teacher awareness or knowledge of the mandate did not equate to the implementation of policies in schools.