Abstract: High-quality development stands as the central theme of the country’s school physical education in the new era and serves as a fundamental imperative for advancing the modernization of physical education. To propel this development, it is essential to both theoretically deconstruct “what defines high-quality” and practically explore “how to achieve high-quality” within school physical education. Employing logical analysis and bibliometric methods, this study examines the contemporary implications, challenges, and pathways for high-quality development in school physical education. The study posits that high-quality development in school physical education prioritizes excellence in quality and responsiveness to stakeholders’ demands for superior physical education. Key themes such as “cultivating virtue and nurturing talent” “core competencies” “physical education curriculum” “physical education pedagogy” “physical education governance” “physical education-academic study integration” “campus football” “physical health” and “physical education teachers” encapsulate critical issues and priorities in this endeavor. Building on these insights, the study proposes actionable pathways: 1) Anchoring education-centric values to systematically develop a moral and humanistic school physical education framework; 2) prioritizing disciplinary core competencies to design competency-driven physical education and health curricula; 3) advancing in-depth pedagogical practices to foster transformative, deep-learning-oriented teaching models; 4) strengthening teacher development to enhance the structural and qualitative optimization of physical education faculty; and 5) promoting collaborative governance among stakeholders to harness systemic synergies for high-quality school physical education.