Loughborough University academic Dr Jo Harris has authored a paper on behalf of the PE Expert Group on the case for physical education becoming a core subject in the national curriculum.
The paper presents the case for physical education becoming a core subject within the national curriculum in England alongside English, mathematics and science. Core subjects are generally considered to lay the foundation for learning in other subjects and, as a result, are generally advantaged in terms of their status, preparation for teaching, and their time and resource allocation in schools. As a consequence, key foundation subjects such as physical education tend to be marginalised and ‘squeezed’ in terms of time and resource. This has led to a narrowing of the curriculum.