Towards a Systematic Development of School-Based Physical Literacy Interventions: A Case Study

Developing interventions that support people to actively engage in their physical literacy (PL) journeys offers significant potential for the promotion of positive health outcomes. Adopting systematic approaches that accommodate the complexity of such work will offer considerable insight into the applicability of PL to real-world settings in a critical and evidence-informed way. Here, the UK Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health Research guidance on developing and evaluating complex interventions is considered particularly valuable. Framed within this guidance, we outline the School Gym/School Fitness 3T (SG/SF3T) programme, a motivational, PL programme for secondary school physical education. Specifically, we focus on the first phase of intervention development using Intervention Mapping. In doing so, a structure to outline the motivational-PL programme theory that underpins the design of the SG/SF3T intervention is provided. Such an approach facilitates a detailed evaluation of whether and how an intervention works and sheds useful light on the utility of PL as a construct worthy of placing at the heart of health and well-being interventions.