Girls having rugby and football as some of main PE sports

You think it’s ace, and you’re entitled to your opinion, but the reason football or any other sport shouldn’t be compulsory is not everyone shares your view.

and that is the EXACT reason why the schools that do a rota of giving their pupils 6 weeks or so or exposure to a whole list of sports are doing the best job, IMO. Of course they need to be compulsory - even aside from the fact that you couldn't timetable / provide the teachers and facilities for dc opting out of things, until you give something a fair chance, you don't know what it is you are going to take to. Surely the BEST way of teaching PE in schools is to expose ALL the dc to as many sports as they can, knowing that lots will hate cross country or dance or tennis or korfball or swimming or mountain biking or kayaking or rock climbing or trampolining or rugby, but that there will be some in each year group that find a physical activity they enjoy.

But, as has already been said, we all have to do things we don't particularly enjoy, both in life, and when we were at school. You can't just opt out of something because you don't fancy it.

You think it’s ace, and you’re entitled to your opinion, but the reason football or any other sport shouldn’t be compulsory is not everyone shares your view.

My DD’s would have hated contact sports. Rugby. Not for them. Or football. Their old school now does football - it’s the fashion. Hockey will go down the drain now as schools do not have enough pitches for all these sports. Girls just end up being boys via sport. Mine went to a girls’ school but sport is changing so much. No one gets to choose.

Our secondary has changed in the past five years. When my daughter was in year 7 and 8 girls didn't do cricket or rugby, just netball and rounders. They've now changed it and girls do cricket and rugby (but only touch - boys get a choice of touch or contact).

What I do find annoying is they've brought in "boys sports" for the girls but not "girls sports" for the boys. The boys still don't do trampolining, dance or gymnastics. My ball-hating son would much prefer any of these to endless rugby, football and cricket.

Also in junior school they play mixed netball but once they go into secondary boys never get to play netball.

Op girls & boys are seperate for high school PE

Surely this is totally normal in 2023?!

Boys and girls did all sports (football, netball, rugby (touch) dance, gym, tennis, badminton etc) at my secondary school in the 90s.

I'm a complete duffer at anything sporty and ended up loathing every single thing we did in PE (because of bullying for being a duffer), but still had to do them.

I still think I'd have had more of a chance at cricket (short bursts of activity, you can get away with not being amazing) and always wanted to have a go at rugby (as what I lacked in any skills I'd haveade up for with aggression and a chance to whack a smug sporty girl. Same reason I was always picked to bully-off in hockey). But not allowed as they were not sports when I was at school.

It's great that children get to try a wider range now.

The obvious solution would be to ask the students what sports they’d like to play.

I think this is great. It’s equality. Whatever is on offer both sexes should be able to do the sport. Boys should have access to gymnastics and girls football etc.

the lionesses have fought to get equal sports access for girls to PE subjects.
swimming, tennis, netball etc, let both genders play.

DD is at a all girls school and they have a very active and succesful football team. It seems girl/women football really made it mainstream and I am glad about it.

They don't do rugby but otherwise it was gymastics, athletics, netball, badmindton, tennis, hockey and rounders. Most sports were taught from holiday to holiday, so not really more than 6 weeks each time and then rinse and repeat over the years.

Dance is taught as a separate subject.

Outside scheduled PE classes they had football, netball and hockey clubs in the afternoon.

Football and rugby are girls sports though OP.
At school, home and work, doing subjects/things you don’t like is part of life.
I don’t like housework but I still have to do it.
I don’t like one particular aspect of my job but i realise it’s a requirement so I do it.

Trousers compulsory for all is a brilliant idea given the belts that the girls wear to my DC’s school 😳😬.

Realise that’s not your question but still 🤷‍♀️😄

Again, confused who's school you're talking about. Yours or your daughter's?

I managed to get injured playing netball at primary school, but survived seven years of it at secondary intact. Not so hockey (direct-ball-on-kneecap incident on the afternoon of Princess Anne's first wedding) or lacrosse, about which I felt that that it being the French women's national game and that the American Indians used to play it to the death said it all, really. I'd have loved the opportunity to play something relatively safe like rugby.

Seriously, though, it really does sound as if the issue here is more the problems that the OP's DD as an individual has with PE / games generally?

Noone moans about sport. Everyone just does it.

I'm so confused. Are you trying to say you never had girls in your class moan about PE? Or that your DD isn't exposed to people like that because she's at an independent sporty school?

Yes- I didn't have to meet people like the OP trying to get out of sport and moaning about having to do it.

I was at school in the 90s and the girls did rugby and football, this isn't a new thing

Why is it strange ?

I think it is an excellent improvement in the PE curriculum from back in the day.
It is great that youngsters get introduced to a whole range of sports and physical activities. No, not everyone will enjoy all of them, in the same way lots of people don't enjoy algebra, or singing, or spelling, or dissecting things, or reading out loud, but I don't think anyone goes through school (or life) enjoying every aspect of every day, but you just get on with it and look forward to the next lesson or the next half term, when you are doing something you enjoy more.

Boys and girls do the same sports at our school too like football, rugby, basketball and badminton. I hated PE at school (especially cross country) but understand why there's a variety because you can't design a PE lesson that everyone will enjoy.

My son was middle set but said that the lower set did a lot of appealing sports like bench ball.

You can't manage a secondary school's curriculum so that your child doesn't have to do things she doesn't want to do. One of the big changes when you go to secondary is the breadth of opportunities that they are exposed to.

It's best for the children to start with their parents having a positive attitude towards what they are going to get the chance to experience. She might not like it. My dd hated chemistry. So I'd say 'never mind, at least you have drama after that to look forward to'.

It sounds like the OP has that choice but doesn't like it.

Reading this makes me very glad I had the ability to choose a sporty independent school for my dd. All the girls do all the sports. Football is ace.

I'm confused too. Netball can get so vicious! More so than football ime.

I’d have liked to do more football, not just bloody netball every time. Not sure what people mean re physical difference? How would that affect girls playing football against other girls?!