AIBU to expect team sports to be explained in schools

I played on school hockey teams late 80s early 90s and didn't have the over all rules explained. Had plenty of practice on corners and shit but had no idea why they were awarded. Only slight awareness of what positions meant defenders v forwards.
Primary school got netball posts just after I left.

You can’t play netball without proper bibs with positions in them.

I think it’s unusual never to have played netball in primary.

The schools my children go to still do this. Games is a whole afternoon of field sports, football, hockey, lacrosse, rugby, anthletivs in the summer or cricket etc. PE is a separate lesson and they’ve done volleyball, gymnastics, dance, running, fitness etc.

This is actually a brilliant idea. I have no clue how any sport works at all. I know football you aim for the net and same with basketball but that’s my entire knowledge.

Nobody in my family played sports, I didn’t have a dad that shouted at the tv or have any basic knowledge at all. For me PE was hell on earth and I still am a bit scared of all sports. I work with people now who talk about sports all the time but I’m completely lost.

I would definitely take a class on this now.

I went to secondary school in the 70s. PE/games teachers were only interested in those who had experience or natural talent. But still shouted at those who made mistakes. Even in swimming non swimmers were left to mess about at the shallow end while the teacher coached the swimmers at the deep end.

I have always been crap at sport but once we were playing rounders in a pe lesson in middle school (9-13) when the supply teacher covering the lesson suddenly got irritated with the pathetic non-hit of the ball everyone was doing by the time it got to my turn. You know the one, where you limply tilt your wrist so the ball falls to the floor and you just make a dash for first base.

She used me as a lesson in how to stand to wait for the ball with one of your legs ready to lunge, arm back ready, and to time it so the bat meets the ball with actual force. I remember the satisfying thwack of bat against ball, it soaring for miles across the field, and my team cheering as I ran a rounder (everyone on the other team was a bit stunned crap old me had done such a good hit and wasn't ready to go after the ball).

I feel like that was the only time during school pe I was ever actually taught to do anything or told how anything works! But I have never forgotten it!

Exactly what happened to me! Over 30 years later and I still couldn't tell you a single rule.

It might as well be if no one tells you! I hadn’t got a clue how to play netball when I went to secondary school. Nothing was explained. I was constantly yelled at for ‘doing it wrong’ and hated every minute of it.

@Shiningmediocrity Colours? Not bibs with positions? Who refereed? So GA and GS didn’t know where they couldn’t go? Not that it’s rocket science!

Seven bloody years of lacrosse and the only rule I learned was "don't whack the opposition with your stick (unless you can make it look like an accident)".

Really? I was at school in the 90s and we were taught the basics at the beginning of the season and then on the couple of occasions a year when it was so wet that they actually cancelled games, they became lessons about the rules.

Agree, especially younger children who might not think to look them up.

Though if the children are followers of certain men's Premier League football teams, they might know different rules.

It was a timing thing. I had no idea I was always swinging too early.
Someone pointing this out, and standing behind me helping me for 10 minutes sorted this out.
I'm not entering the olympics anytime soon, but I enjoy a knock about and can manage rallies of 20 plus shots.

We were never taught how to play any team games. I found it really annoying!!

@terrifiedgran How bizarre. I just have poor hand/eye coordination and find hitting a ball very difficult. With badminton it’s mostly self taught and no teaching would help me. Most people who can hit a ball, can hit a ball.

This thread is so cathartic.
I honestly thought the reason I'd been so crap at PE, and felt like I didn't know what was going on was on me. I just assumed I was too thick, and must have missed the instructions somewhere. It was a mystery though, because mostly I managed instructions in the classroom.

I also thought I was incapable of hitting the shuttlecock in badminton. Several years of (occasional) badminton in school just swiping about uselessly. And then after I left was playing casually with someone on a beach (having said I couldn't play) and within about half an hour they'd taught me how to hold a rally!!

@Shiningmediocrity Are you sure they actually played a game of netball? What you can and cannot do must have been explained or it’s just practice. It’s early in the term. So more about skills and less about rules?

We were taught rules of sports because the school had competitive teams who played against other schools. My DDs knew rules too.

Same. My daughter was also told the rules when she did sports in PE in the last decade.

They will probably stream or it's difficult to have lessons suitable for everyone. DS's school has 5 sets:

Sporty boys
Sporty girls
Average boys
Average girls
Mixed group of the rest

Occasionally they ask if anyone feels that they're in the wrong group. At which point, half the boys in the mixed group claim they should be in the top one.

It seems I'm unusual in that our PE department were quite fixed on our learning and following the rules!

I ended up thinking the opposite tbh - people freely engaged with gym equipment and fun low-rules games like dodgeball, but skived proper lessons. I thought it made more sense to just had people enthusiastically moving.

Completely agree. When I went to senior school, age 11, I had never played hockey before so was thrown in the deep end. Although having played football in the years leading up to that helped in knowing the basics about marking, positions etc, and I ended up playing for the school's U12A team that year. What I found puzzling though was at prize day when the star player, who had played hockey through her prep school years, won "Most improved player". I thought that in my case, coming from zero hockey to the first team was a pretty decent improvement!

This definitely doesn't mirror my or my children's experience of learning how to play hockey/netball/tennis. That's not a lesson surely? What exactly are teachers being paid for if they just say "go play hockey" and leave the kids to it??

One of my children who absolutely hates team games says the being yelled at by peers for doing it wrong was pretty common though!

Flashback to year 7 or 8, when my PE teacher said Natsku, I want you on the cross country team, you'll be competing in a race next week (or something like that) and so I went in the school minibus to some really fancy girls school where they wore tartan skirts and ran a cross country race for the first time. I was also made to do discus on sports day despite never trying it before, and everyone else got a proper cone to mark where their discus landed and I got a bloody cardboard box!