Quality physical education in the first years of schooling requires specialist expertise, which the physical education specialist contributes to the collaboration. When the classroom teacher works together with the physical education specialist, their knowledge and competences complement each other, which contributes to a higher-quality delivery of lessons.
The main topic of this master's thesis is how the collaboration between the classroom teacher and the physical teacher takes place in practice during physical education lessons in the first and second educational periods of primary school. By observing 15 lessons at four primary schools, I aimed to determine the actual division and organisation of work between the two teachers and the extent to which each of them contributes to the delivery of physical education lessons. The findings may serve as a basis for considering improvements in this area.
In the theoretical part, I presented team work, the subject of physical education in primary school, and team teaching by the classroom teacher and the physical education teacher. In the empirical part, I used systematic observation to monitor 15 physical education lessons at four primary schools. For each lesson, I used an observation sheet to record the share of work performed by each teacher in individual activities.
The results showed that the physical education teacher was predominant in leading all three parts of the lesson, most notably the main part. The more demanding specialist activities – demonstration, spotting, feedback and differentiation – were carried out mainly by the physical education teacher. The classroom teacher was most involved in maintaining discipline. This division of work indicates that the competences of both teachers complement each other, which is the essence of team work.
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