Original intentions and unintended consequences: the ‘contentious’ role of assessment in the development of Leaving Certificate Physical Education in Ireland

Ireland is set to introduce an examinable physical education curriculum (Leaving Certificate Physical Education (LCPE)) in the final two years of post-primary school. A Physical Education Development Group (PEDG) were tasked with the responsibility of constructing the LCPE specification. This paper explores the LCPE curriculum development process by drawing on Elias’s [(1978). What is sociology? New York: Columbia University Press] ‘game models’ framework to provide a theoretically informed analysis of the operations of the PEDG. Interviews were conducted with 10 PEDG members. The results revolved around curriculum content knowledge, assessment weightings, and debating the responsibility for assessing students’ work. The game models framework allowed us to understand the power-struggles in the PEDG and how they worked to arrive at a consensus about curriculum content and assessment. The outcome was one that no ‘player’ could have anticipated, and Elias’s game models framework shed light on how a curriculum with original intentions became a curriculum made up of unintended consequences.