Not selected for P.E team

Sometimes I think decisions can also be made due to a) very pushy parents that the teacher just can’t be dealing with, so feels compelled to pick certain children so as not to get a complaint or ear bashing and b) children who are struggling in other areas, so picking them for a sports team even if not the strongest gives them some extra confidence.

I would lay money on the PE teacher just not knowing your DC can do it.

it’s easier and quicker to just select the kids they know already can do an acceptable job.

They should find out/ask of course but it’s far more likely to be laziness/overwork than malice.

Yes ask the selection criteria and also mention you were surprised she wasn't selected bearing in mind she has ability and competes for X club outside school. Also ask what improvement they believe she needs to make to achieve selection especially as some without experience have been judged to be better. Watch them squirm?

I would ask by email copying the Head.

@TenacityWins I don't think people can give you advice unless we know what sport it is. It is obviously much easier to prove your talent in an individual sports such as athletics, swimming or tennis than if it's a team sport such as football, netball or rounders.

Ha, yes, this. DH still remembers that he never got picked for school sports teams at primary school because he was rubbish at the two main boys sports of football and cricket.

But he was talented at racket sports (he went on to captain his school and university teams at both tennis and squash, travelling all over the country to play). He fell in love with his secondary school because they had no such prejudices – they held try-outs and play-offs and then picked the children who got the best results.

@IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads I agree with this approach and I think so would most posters here as it makes sense.
The issue is, most of these stories are showing that the same kids are being picked, even if they are very successful outside of school in the same sport. The 4 girls in my daughter's year that get picked for everything are competitive dancers, but from the list of fixtures they go to, you'd think they're masters of every sport under the sun, including the school dance team.

Always been the case I was rubbish at pe but could swim I swam at County level and was a qualified lifeguard. Was never picked for school swimming team, we had a pool so teacher could actually see I swam and I would do lunchtime swimming club for extra training. My dm finally complained about it when pe teacher wrote about my poor ability at swimming.....

My school would have argued that if you play a sport out of school, then the school team is an opportunity for other people to do it. This was 40 years ago, in a huge school with lots of people to select from.

On the other hand, DD's school year girls football team is exactly the same people as her grassroots football team.

@turkeyboots This annoys me so much, especially when it's sports like swimming where there's normally very little, if any, chance to support your school. It would be different if they chose the kids who never take part in anything, but choosing kids who are already representing the school in a super popular sport is just evil.

@Netaporter you're my hero.

Sport teachers and Head does influence, primary school teams we found were selected from those that pay extra for holiday camps that is run by the teachers. Kids that are good but do external clubs were not selected unless run by the teachers in spare time. Parents writing weekly emails to get kids into teams and other dubious behaviours. We are not talking premiership football academies but just general kid sports for 6 to 10 years old.

Everyone at our school refers to PE teacher being from the 70s
Except he's not old. Just lazy. Easier to pick the same 9 kids for every sport regardless of if they are good & if other kids actually play that sport

Seems to have been an issue in PE forever. I believe PE teachers have damaged many children's confidence in sport for life with this form of behaviour. They had the favoured sporty girls when I was at school who were in all the teams and heavily favoured during pe lessons and then the rest of us who were put down, ignored and made to feel utility rubbish and it is still going on.
This area of schools needs a serious shake up if we actually want to create healthy adults who enjoy some form of exercise. Rather than creating a population with horror stories about PE teachers , and humiliation during pe lessons which is what we currently have.

Swimming here too. There was a local primary schools gala and DD school picked 8 kids to go. Who were all on the football or netball teams and did not include any of the 5 County level swimmers that year 6 happened to have.

Are you saying they have a School P.E. Team who are good all rounders in all sports.

If anyone is competent in one sport but not a good all rounder I can see how they might miss the team cut if there are many all rounders competent across many sports available.

It is shit, but if that is how they do the school P.E. team you are probably unlikely to succeed as they would either need to change the whole organisation/selection criteria and instead of having one PE Team have different teams for each sporting activity which is a much higher resource overhead.

My son goes to a specialist school and has dyspraxia but he is still never chosen. So even in a school where they 'celebrate differences' its reinforced he is shit at PE. He also hates PE now.

**@Netaporter 😄

We had this at Primary. DD was good at most sports but hated netball, which was the PE teacher’s favourite sport. Because she didn’t want to be in the netball team she was never in any other sports teams, despite being very good.
The Netball team was basically the team for every other sport.

Wow, this seems to happen so frequently and, as several have said, seems rife amongst sports teachers. I honestly think some of them (no offence intended) are not the brightest and tend to choose kids who remind them of themselves or are the vision of being 'sporty', if you know what I mean? For boys, that means those who are all rounder, more 'macho' boys who are strong and quick. It also often means those boys (and I guess girls) who are taller, bigger, stronger, even though they miss out on those who develop physically a bit later. Huge loss of talent!

It's the same with sports scholarships - most schools seem to select on fitness, size and speed which, tbh, for some sports is ridiculous as the technique or knowledge of the sports is harder to attain than building up someone's fitness levels!

The issue then is that those with scholarships or perceived as high performance level, seem to get on a list and then get picked for everything.

I honestly think sports management at school is one area that really needs to move with the times.

My old school was appalling for this. The sports teacher clearly had favourites - two girls whose parents taught at the school, sons of parents involved in the football club. Made no effort to teach skills to others (myself included, I competed at a national level in a sport, but was made to feel useless in multiple ways - put on the spot with a new sport, etc.). It made PE a waste of time and fostered some very poor lessons and behaviour.

Sports teachers seem to have favourites more than other teachers. It’s strange. Not my kids as they are shit at all sport. But I could see other enthusiastic and talented children being looked over for the more alpha kids of alpha parents. A real shame. Maybe a power thing for PE teachers, who knows.

@Netaporter I salute you!

I had this at DD’s prep school. Literally the only one not to be picked in a very small year group, even as a reserve, choosing kids from a lower year group instead . “Sorry mininetaporter I can’t pick everyone” And it was very petty with the PE teacher, who seemed to have taken a dislike to her and as a grown woman of 50+years should have really known better to try and undermine a child’s self-esteem. DD was devastated. One summer she trained very hard to get onto the x-country team as the first 10 in tryouts would get picked. She finished 8th and still didn’t get picked. I asked the school to justify that and got absolutely nowhere. Then the PE teacher one Easter had chocolate to give out ‘only for the team’ and DD was the only child not to get any. So I did two things, first, I wrote to the school to say DD ‘sorry, but she is not available’ on the days where there was a tournament/event so the teacher had no power to exclude her and then ensured she had success outside of school in other non-sporting activities which meant she was celebrated elsewhere and the school couldn’t claim credit. Secondly, I used to buy her teachers and support staff a nice bottle of wine/fizz at Xmas/end of year. After this all started, I excluded the PE teacher as the only staff member involved with DD not to get a bottle. She happened to be in the school office when I dropped the presents off and I explained to her “sorry, I could only pick x number of people to buy for but I’m sure you understand”. Obviously incredibly petty. And funnily enough, the exclusion stopped straight after..

On the upside, DD learned two things, not all adults are fair, and secondly when you get to the next school, the kids used to always being picked without having to try are devastated at no longer being ‘special’. DD is a well rounded individual and we still laugh at the madness of it all back then. Anything that is a bit shit we refer to as ‘very Mrs X’ 😉

@CMOTDibbler Schools aren't allowed to do this for one, and two it's mostly clubs that don't like their players competing for their schools as risk of injury is high when playing with less able players.
However, picking favourites is a very common thing with PE teachers. In my DDs case, the swimming situation I mentioned above, the girls who were chosen do compete nationally.. in dance. They've also represented the school in dance... and pretty much every other sport.