Success factors for a physical literacy initiative in a Swedish upper secondary school for pupils with disabilities

Background
Adolescents with disabilities are less physical active and have poorer health compared to others. Health Promotion (HP) including physical literacy was therefore implemented in a Swedish special upper secondary school. Implementing physical activity initiatives outside physical education is challenging, and little is known about school staffs’ experiences of HP with pupils with disabilities. The purpose of the study was therefor to explore the school staffs experience of the HP initiatives success factors.

Methods
Five two-hour collegial reflection seminars were used for data-collection. 27 school staff (teachers and personal assistants) with varying age and gender participated. Seminars had preset questions related to the aim of the HP initiative and the explorative study. The group reflections were digitally recorded, transcribed, and analyzed through thematic analysis. The study was done in accordance with the Swedish Law of Research Ethics, SFS 2003:460.

Findings
An experience and reflection-based learning strategy, including individual adaptation, participation and influence functioned as prerequisites for the pupils’ development of physical literacy. Staffs’ participation and collaboration was also related to success, together with continuous documentation, analysis, and reflection.

Conclusion
Participation and reflection are thereby considered the core of a successful HP initiative for physical literacy development of pupils with disabilities in a special upper secondary school. More research is however needed for further exploration of the complexity characterizing school HP in this type of setting.