From leadership research to district action: The complexity of promoting physical activity in English state primary schools: an in-depth qualitative analysis of the role of social context

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide. Proposed district actions are separate from the original authors’ findings and recommendations. Independent peer review of this guide is not asserted.

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Evidence and transfer

Education-related source: verify which participants, institutions and outcomes were actually studied before district adoption. Source publication type: research-article. License and identity checks do not establish study quality or causality.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

Abstract Background Primary schools present an opportunity to equitably promote physical activity. To date, school-based interventions have had limited success. Contextual differences between schools could be a key factor that contributes to this lack of impact. However, the elements that constitute a school’s social context (i.e. the organisational, political, cultural, and sociodemographic characteristics) and how they might impact on primary school physical activity are unclear. The aims of this study were to conduct an in-depth qualitative analysis of state primary school social context related to physical activity and, using this analysis, provide recommendations for policy and practice. Methods We conducted one-to-one semi-structured interviews with 33 state primary school staff in Southwest England between November 2023 and January 2024. Staff roles included headteachers/principals (n = 5), deputy headteachers/principals (n = 5), class teachers (n = 7), Physical Education (PE) subject leads (n = 8), dedicated PE teachers (n = 4), teaching assistants (n = 2), and one Parent Teacher Association chair. Staff were recruited from 19 purposively-sampled schools with a range of school sizes and sociodemographic characteristics. We used reflexive thematic analysis. Results Five themes were generated that highlighted: (1) the impact of regulatory systems and curriculum pressures created an environment where physical activity was difficult to prioritise; (2) schools with high pupil needs experienced increased pressure, which sometimes impacted staff motivation and wellbeing; (3) senior leadership priorities were key to promoting pupil physical activity, influenced by their personal interests/background/values, regulatory inspections, curriculum pressures, and pupil needs; (4) limited PE training during teacher training impacted teacher confidence that, when combined with curriculum pressures, led many schools to outsource PE to external enterprise; and (5) “passionate” individual staff members who dedicated their own time were important to drive physical activity in the pressured school environment. Conclusion Revisions to school regulatory systems and policies are needed to enable schools to prioritise physical activity so it is not dependent on “passionate” individuals. Senior leadership plays a key role in prioritising physical activity in the high pressure state primary school environment. It is important that practitioners and researchers consider these diverse and challenging social contextual factors within English state primary schools in intervention design. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-025-23471-z. Keywords: Physical activity, Children, School-based, Primary schools, Context, Tailored-intervention

Study methods

This study drew on qualitative data from the Physical Activity via a School Specific PORTfolio (PASSPORT) project [23] collected within two sets of one-to-one semi-structured interviews with state primary school staff. The first set of interviews focused on understanding school context, while the second focused on exploring the feasibility and acceptability of a tailored intervention design. As key data related to context were apparent in both sets of interviews, both datasets were used in the analysis.

Limitations

Our study has two key strengths. Firstly, through purposive sampling, we were able to recruit participants employed in a range of roles from schools in socioeconomically, geographically, and ethnically diverse areas, which gave our data a broad and balanced mix of perspectives. However, this study was not without limitations. Primarily, it was evident in the data that school context is highly complex and has the potential to change over time. While the one-to-one semi-structured interview method used provided key insights, there exists a need to go beyond the semi-structured interview format into further, in-depth work to fully experience and encapsulate school context and how key aspects interact on a day-to-day basis. Secondly, despite carefully planned recruitment processes, the voluntary nature of this study meant that it is possible that less active schools did not participate due to feelings of not wanting to be placed under scrutiny. This may have led to an imbalance of more physical activity-orientated schools participating in this study. Nevertheless, physical activity levels in England have been linked to both socioeconomic status and ethnicity [60], and our successful recruitment of these schools may have helped to alleviate this limitation.

A 90-day district inquiry

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
Days 16–30 · Design. Choose one school improvement question with teachers. Protect a short shared planning cycle, agree an instructional change and use a common rubric for examining student work. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Review implementation fidelity, teacher time and independently scored student work against a recorded baseline. Examine access differences and competing explanations before attributing changes to leadership. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Robert Walker; Danielle House; Alice Porter; Ruth Salway; Simona Kent-Saisch; Michael Beets; David Revalds Lubans; Frank de Vocht; Russell Jago. The complexity of promoting physical activity in English state primary schools: an in-depth qualitative analysis of the role of social context. BMC Public Health (2025-08-25). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-23471-z

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.