There are a few things that we know about fitness testing in HPE:
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most Secondary HPE teachers carry out fitness testing at least once per year with each class/grade (Alfrey & Gard, 2014).
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some children enjoy participating in fitness testing (Alfrey & Yager, 2020).
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some children find fitness testing painful, embarrassing and shameful (Alfrey & Yager, 2020; Garret & Wrench, 2008), and these feelings can persist into adulthood, to damaging effect (Sykes & McPhail, 2008).
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children’s experiences of fitness testing are not always meaningful or educational (Mercier, Phillips & Silverman, 2016).
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there is no evidence that fitness testing is successful in promoting healthy lifestyles, physical activity, or develop the required knowledge and skills for lifelong physical activity (Cale & Harris, 2009).
In addition, school-based challenges, mental health and body image are of concern for approximately a third of young Australians (Carlisle et al., 2018).
With these points in mind, this blog post shares some evidence-based thoughts related to why so many of us use fitness testing as a context for learning, and how we might work towards inclusive, safe, educational and relevant/meaningful fitness education for all students within HPE.