Policy actors and artefacts bridging the policy-practice nexus in PETE

This conference encourages us to think about how physical education teacher educators (PETE) might be able to build policy and practice bridges to/with/for others, such as pre-service and professional teachers. It invites us to cross over into other contexts in order to think about new ways to develop and deliver PETE courses as well as provide professional development in a variety of settings and in times of curriculum policy reform. This paper exemplifies this contextual bridge crossing process and its potential impacts in three ways. Firstly, it reports upon our work as ‘policy actors’ charged with making sense (interpreting) and then supporting (enacting) the new Australian Curriculum in Health and Physical Education (ACHPE) in our PETE classrooms and in schools. Secondly, it shares and analyses some artefacts to materialize as a result of our policy actor roles. In considering these insights we argue that teacher educators have the potential to influence PST and teachers’ thinking about and engagement with curriculum policy. Consequentially, some modest evidence of emergent impact of our policy artefacts on teachers, pre-service teachers, organisations and peers are provided. the paper seeks to provide insights around the performative potential and role of artefacts in documenting, producing and enabling policy enactments. Thus, as opposed to omitting the artefactual from policy enactment, we embrace it, arguing that artefacts can cross bridges to have performative potential and can play a key role in supporting curriculum policy enactment.