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AIBU?

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AIBU to expect team sports to be explained in schools

82 replies

Shiningmediocrity · 16/09/2026 13:25

I’m Gen X, so it was pretty standard for PE teachers to not explain the rules of team games. DC has started secondary school and played netball for the first time. I asked how it went and said how strange it was looking back that we were never told the rules of sports we played. She said they weren’t told any either! AIBU to think that this would have changed by now? Lighthearted thread btw.

OP posts:
Jiski · 16/09/2026 16:35

I was told in the 90s and I went to a terrible school!

Catza · 16/09/2026 15:32

This is one of my most traumatic childhood experiences! I moved school when I was 12 and in my previous school we didn't play team sports. It was heavily geared towards gymnastics and cross-country skiing. We moved to a different country and my new school seemed to have been obsessed with ball games of various kind. I was constantly shouted at by my classmates when I joined in and broke some kind of a rule that nobody bothered to explain to me. A month later, my mum signed me off PE for the rest of my school "career".

WearingBeautifulShoes · 16/09/2026 15:32

Agree. DD has left secondary school now but it was always assumed they knew the basic rules of eg hockey and netball in advance. DD had never played hockey before.

ToadRage · 16/09/2026 15:15

I never knew the rules of hockey or how to score in tennis. But I was in the netball team at primary school. In my experience most team sports (netball, football, rugby) at primary school are after school clubs and not really taught in PE, so if you didn't do the clubs at school then naturally you wouldn't know how play the game.

DooDallyHallie · 16/09/2026 15:13

It's kidsnot listening!

Ineedanewsofa · 16/09/2026 15:11

YANBU - DD has had the same experience, games teachers just assumed they’d all played netball before and didn’t explain anything, also seemed annoyed (according to DD) when she and a few others said it was their first time.
She now hates netball and hockey as a result of being “made to feel stupid” 😬

2dogsandabudgie · 16/09/2026 15:08

Surely they must have been told something, otherwise how would they know how to play it.