Physical education scholars have identified a number of factors that affect how teachers translate policy into practice. It is becoming clear that to create learning experiences that reflect the intention of guiding documents, teachers need to employ appropriate teaching styles. The aim of this paper was to determine whether the teaching styles used by a group of PE teachers provide opportunities for students to meet objectives relating to creativity, problem solving, personal responsibility and independence. The first part of the investigation involved the use of a questionnaire based on Mosston and Ashworth's "Spectrum of Teaching Styles" (Mosston, M., & Ashworth, S. (2002). "Teaching Physical Education" (5th ed.). Boston: Benjamin Cummings. (United States). The second part involved observations of six primary and middle school teachers' physical education lessons. The results suggest that PE teachers may not use different pedagogies for different reasons. The paper is concluded with a consideration of how a teaching styles framework can help teachers to meet diverse curriculum objectives.