Physical Education Framework
for
California Public Schools
Kindergarten through Grade Twelve
California Department of Education
1994

The Physical Education Framework is based on the premise that the quality and productivity of each individual’s life can be enhanced through participation in a comprehensive, sequential physical education system that promotes physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being. Education implies a focus on the whole person as opposed to a narrow range of skills or abilities. It means teaching children how to apply new knowledge and to become lifelong learners. The concept of lifelong learning is as relevant to physical education as it is to other areas.

A physically educated person is one who has mastered the necessary movment skills to participate confidently in many different forms of physical activity, values physical fitness, and understands that both are intimately related to health and well-being.

Major Premises of this Framework

This framework is based on a set of major premises that permeate every chapter and should be clearly understood by everyone planning or developing a physical education program for children in kindergarten through grade twelve.

An effective physical education program should be:

• well planned, sequential, developmental, and age-appropriate.
• governed by the vision for physical education described in this framework, rather than just games and sports.
• one that balances and contributes to children’s academic learning. It is not separate and distinct from the core curriculum. Neither is participation in a specialized athletic sport an adequate substitute for a acomprehensive physical education system.
• able to help children and youths develop a lifelong commitment to their own physical well-being, health, and fitness, with a clear emphasis on a variety of pleasurable physical activities and an active life-style.
• able to present all three goals*** (presented in this framework), no single goal should be emphasized to the exclusion of the others.
• able to provide well-planned and well-supported programs which require a commitment of leadership, staff and resources.

***The Goals of Physical Education

A comprehensive, articulated physical education system helps children and youths accomplish three goals. Within each goal appropriate disciplines are addressed to support the knowledge, skills, and attitudes desired for every student. The three goals are equally important; each interacts continually with the others in a well-planned program.

GOAL: Movement Skills and Movement Knowledge

Disciplines:

1. Motor Learning
2. Biomechanics
3. Exercise Physiology and Health-related Physical Fitness

GOAL: Self-Image and Personal Development

Disciplines:

1. Human Growth and Development
2. Psychology
3. Aesthetics

GOAL: Social Development

Disciplines:

1. Sociology
2. Historical Perspectives

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