Did you enjoy PE at school?

Hated it apart from swimming or occasional trampolining. Did play hockey for the school although I hated that too. Love exercise now but don’t fo any team or racquet sports

You call it PE, I call it ritualised humiliation. No, I didn't enjoy it. Totally alienated me from physical activity.

You mean the class that is supposed to be about public health and teaching children to find a way to be fit for life? The one that is supposed to help children find their path to physical activity that they can sustain for a lifetime?

the class that instead tells every non-sporty child that they are incompetent and deserve to be publicly bullied by classmates and teachers? The class that could teach a variety of fitness options that would appeal to a variety of skill sets and personality types but instead focuses on team sports and natural athletic ability?

no, I didn’t like that class

No-hated it. Still hate all forms of exercise unless it involves a horse or a dog.

Yes, especially netball.

I loved PE, my favourite subject at school. Just loved playing sports on general. I went to an all girls school and everybody seemed to have asimilar positive experience.
My dad was sporty and encouraged me and both my teenagers are sporty too doing it for GCSE too. I still like exercising.

I left school after 6th form age 18 In 1977.
I loathed PE, the sadistic teachers, the bullying, being either freezing cold or boiling hot, the dreadful emphasis on vile team games, and the humiliation of the communal showers.
Hockey in gym knickers and airtex shirt, below freezing and sleeting while “Miss” was wrapped up like an arctic explorer. Summer wasn’t any better. I can’t run now and I couldn’t then. Being shrieked at and called names wasn’t going to help.
It was the same for my DH, only it was football and athletics for him. His PE teacher broke his arm by deliberately kicking a (heavy wet) leather football at him, then made him carry on playing.

Why oh why can’t PE be about having fun keeping fit- airobics, Zumba, yoga, whatever with after school clubs for the ones who show talent/ want to play proper sports? Perhaps the the non-sporty majority might actually enjoy exercise and the overall health of e
would be better.

But no, that would mean PE teachers actually having to do some work.

Loved it, other than cross country running 😂

No. It sucked all the joy out of sports and made it a chore.

This is truly horrific ,what kind of person would behave like that ! i hope your parents sorted them out !
To many experiences like this alongside barbaric communal showers for teenagers who generally just want to be hiding under a rock at that age with lunatic bitch teachers made pe in the 80's a total nightmare.
I quite liked it at primary ,absolutely bloody hated it at secondary , i was very talented at writing letters from 'parents' for myself and others to get out of it, never got sussed.
Everybody bar about 2 girls in my year hated it ,total failure on the schools part,its sad looking back how different things could have been with some encouragement and kindness, i hope all those evil hated female pe teachers live with some regret at their nastiness .

I agree with sadism being an essential part of being a PE teacher.

I remember ours, warmly wrapped up in a thick track suit and wooly hat, forcing us out onto the hockey field in horizontal sleet in aertex shirts and tiny hockey skirts.

How is anyone supposed to enjoy blue thighs, rampant period pain and frost bite in the fingers? Even now 40 years later, I regard the hateful woman with loathing. She achieved nothing positive although her bullying clearly gave her a kick.

What other job allows grown adults to abuse children with impunity?

Scene: a large, municipal park in the mid 70s.
Me trundling along a running route as slowly as I could get away with.
PE teacher: get a move on Tortie! Weirdoes hang around this park, looking for little girls like you!

Lovely. And it just about sums up the misery of PE and games at that school. When I moved, the misery came with me, because I loathed PE and games, but I did better academically and my new school was into dance and drama and I enjoyed both, so it took the edge off. I'm 60 now and still averse to physical effort. I go to the gym to keep my joints as supple as possible and I walk as much as I can. I'm absolutely convinced of the importance of physical activity regardless of age, size and health status and constantly flummoxed by how much energy goes into putting us off it.

I liked it but definitely aspects I didn’t (communal showers, the odd bossy teacher, gym skirts). I was quite fast so got to represent my house occasionally and I escaped some of the embarrassment of never being picked for teams despite not being particularly popular otherwise. I did a few sports outside of school and that was much more fun, with coaching and competitions. At primary school, sports day was my favourite day of the year, probably because we won sweets back then.

and now in my late 50s I play 1 team sport, 1 martial arts and cycle.

Yes except for fitness (boring) and badminton (shit tennis).

Loved it and was in the hockey and cross country teams. In the big inter school cross country championships I would place pretty much in the middle so I wasn’t some sort of sports star. Hated netball though as it’s so boring. Lots of the girls hated getting sweaty and cared about how they looked. I was to be fair an absolute tomboy though and thought nothing of swimming in the sea in my knickers and vest as we grew up at the beach because I fancied it, had many a hiding for that. We didn’t have a shower at my house and only a bath, this was the very late 1970’s and 1980’s so I loved the opportunity for a shower.

Grandfather was a PT instructor in the army, Mother was a professional dancer and circus performer when young, DH parents were Captains of hockey teams and played till about 30 as did DH, they were all keen sailors as well inc SIL. DS was good at every sport he tried and captain of his cricket team, still playing football as an adult. DD wasn’t sporty but was an accomplished pianist.

I loved P.E. but was shit at it. One of the last to be chosen in team games. The only sport I knew I was good at was football. Girls were not allowed to play it. I still remember a male teacher, when I asked if we could have a girls team, laughing, saying 'girls DO NOT play football, go away'. Went to state junior/ middle/ comp.

My own kids..
DS1 was very sporty, Still can play most sports and run but doesn't have the lifestyle to commit to teams. Prep school, senior indie.
DS2, no coordination, hated school sports but joined judo at senior school as an extracurricular. He liked hiking trips too. state primary, indie senior.
DD no real sports until senior school, switched to indie and found she was massively behind the girls who had gone to preps.Did martial arts out of school to national level. School only interested in those at country/ county level in school sports. state primary, senior indie.
I found primary schools didn't really do or teach sports, but vague 'games' The prep was very traditional prep sports and actually taught the sports. Senior Indie focused on the kids already doing sports, not bothering to 'teach' the kids who hadn't already learnt.

Secondary school, NO! I refused to do it after year 8.
Bullying in the changing rooms as I am quite hairy, being picked last for everything and being ignored in stupid games like netball.

These days you can't stop me running or going to the gym. I can even beat the speedy girls who used to beat me at running. I've just hung in there for 36yrs 😁.

I liked it in primary school - especially when the old school gym equipment would come out. You knew it was going to be a fun lesson.

Secondary school - it was mostly good. I loved or netball and rounders but hated hockey. Especially when we had to play during a freezing winters day.

Hated it. For some unknown reason we didn’t do netball or hockey, etc at primary school so when I got to secondary school I had no idea how to play anything. I was constantly yelled at for getting it wrong and never learned the rules.

Unsurprisingly it put me off for life. I still have no idea how the scoring for tennis works. And have zero interest in finding out.

The changing rooms were also horrific. Having to have showers in front of peers with a dragon of a PE teacher standing over us keeping note of who had their period… just vile.

Hmmm. Not sure there's no humiliation in other classes tbh. I remember end of term exam rests being posted on boards. I remember being berated in maths class bc I just didn't get it. Also hated art class when I was routinely humiliated for complete lack of any ability. And even worse when art was added into other subjects randomly like history which I was great at...not so much when we had to do posters etc!

Basically you remember what you were bad at and what you were great at. And you always feel that everyone else noticed what you were rubbish at. It's probably worse when you're bad at something academic and deemed essential, eg when you can't get onto a vocational course at college bc you've failed your maths or English gcse.

Primary school - yes.

Secondary school - not much. The non-competitive stuff was ok, but I could not be arsed with the competitive stuff, or running about a hockey field in the freezing cold. The girls who did like that were usually much taller than me and got far too excited by it all.

It was a bit mixed for me. I was rubbish at all of it. But I liked netball, though there was no opportunity to play any extra as I wasn't good enough to get on team. I thought lacrosse was a ridiculous sport, with someone hitting your stick with theirs really close to your head. No helmets or mouthguards back then. I hated the knickers we wore for athletics. It was a girls school, but no one had ever thought of what it was like to wear them when you had your period. One teacher opened the pool for me after school to swim, which was really lovely and made me think she didn't just care about the sporty kids.

It is interesting to see what has and hasn't changed. I wonder how much thought teachers give to the kids who aren't sporty or don't like sport. My DDs aren't great at sport. DD1's school groups them by ability, but then give the worst facilities and biggest groups to the least able. You wouldn't do that with a maths class, so I'm not sure why it's OK for PE. They also mix the best and worst groups at the end of term "for a fun session", which apparently neither group appreciates.

No. I loathed it. I dreaded PE lessons which made me utterly miserable and hate myself for being uncoordinated, short sighted & crap at sport. Being forced to run around wearing next to nothing in the freezing cold & mud while being shouted at by bullying teachers made me absolutely loathe exercise for decades. It’s one of the main reasons I became clinically obese.

Looking back, I would actually call my PE lessons school sponsored/approved humiliation and bullying.