PE Memories

[amygarden]

DD has confided that she is starting to hate sports because of her secondary PE lessons.

What are people's own memories or experiences - did PE inspire you to love sports and exercise or promote fear and loathing?

Compulsory gym skirt with navy knickers underneath, guaranteed to make a chubby 12 year old hate themselves.

Swimming lessons, having to change in shared cubicles when you hate your body.

Trying to change discretely so you could change your top without showing your bra.

Cross country where they followed you round town in a car.

Athletics on the playing field where the kids from the rival school who had a later lunchtime to stop the fights would gather outside the fence and shout names at you.

We did get to wear joggy bottoms from 4th year onward, and got to use the gym in 5th and 6th year.

Surprisingly I actually discovered I liked exercise after I left school!

I was bullied so badly for my dyspraxia in middle school (not UK) that I told my parents I'd found a job and given up high school if they didn't found a way to take me out permanently on medical grounds.

I was extremely academic so they would never have accepted that. Dyspraxia was absolutely unheard of in the 90s in my country. They found a friend of a friend of a friend in the local medical commission and sorted it out anyway.

I restarted sport at 32. Running for pleasure, coming last in charity races. Still useless with catching balls.

PE should be abolished worldwide.

I hated it. Pure misery that makes me feel horrible 20 + years later. It didn't help that my mother is a PE teacher and I was meant to love all sports and be amazing.

This will be outing to anyone who knows me I imagine. (Hi Mum and Dsis who I know read Mumsnet)

I must lead with the info that apart from PE I was a polite model student to all my teachers. I was also unfailingly polite to my PE teachers too.

I used to turn up to PE with my kit and refuse to take part at all because of the sheer humiliation of it. Not get changed or anything as I'd realised there wasn't the slightest thing they could do. If they tried to send me on detention I'd argue on what basis - I'd come prepared for a lesson with all equipment etc. And I also realised they couldn't physically detain me for a detention either.

I was obliging and happy in all other respects and certainly wasn't a classic troublemaker- the PE teacher used to turn a puce colour and do a fair amount of swearing which was very satisfying, but she realised I'd "had" her and actually left me alone. The headteacher wasn't interested as I was fine in all other respects. I did a lot of less humiliating and enjoyable outside school exercise so my parents weren't at all concerned.

I left year 7 in 1994 and we were still having naked communal showers, we had no choice, the PE showers were filthy and freezing and the teachers used to watch to make sure you got washed..

Communal showers - still traumatised

Anxiety over periods, sweat patches, hairy legs, fat thighs, red sweaty face, being rubbish at sports.

Would either get bullied in the changing rooms by the other girls about my body (hair, lack of boobs, you name it) or bullied by the boys during class (kicking me intentionally, chucking equipment at my face, calling names).

Another who hated it, communal showers and the teacher would stand at the end watching and telling us off if we tried to cover any bit of us with our hands, if we were on a period and asked not to shower she'd shout " You're on? On what? On the floor? On a tile? What are you on?".

Hated pe in junior school - music and movement tapes. All terrible.
In senior school it was worse. I have exercise induced asthma and no consideration was ever given for this. If I took my blue inhaler to help it gave me a very rapid pulse and I still felt unwell.
Sadistic PE teacher who would write down when you were 'on' so you couldn't use it as an excuse to get out of the miserable communal showers too often.
She would take your towel away from you and scream at you if you didn't fully shower.

Thank goodness I had a different teacher from year 10. She had all us sport no-hopers and instead of being horrible she did things like table tennis.
When it was our turn for swimming she taught us how to float properly and feel confident in the water. Then she taught us lifesaving techniques.
I remember one day after we'd done an aerobics lesson she said "I don't mind if you shower or not, but if you don't can you get your feet wet and leave some footprints about so Mrs PE sadist thinks you've showered and doesn't have a go at me.
Loved her.

I thought the communal changing rooms were degrading enough, luckily we were never made to have showers.

I hated it. In primary I was on a few sports teams, secondary I would write forge notes to get out of pe. Once a term we had to do the bleep test and I always dropped out first. It was always just an hour of total humiliation each week although I did enjoy the one term we did tennis.

Y7-9 absolutely loathed it. All lessons were mixed, if it was a team sport the boys never passed to the girls so it was pointless being there. I had DD boobs by 14 so I hated running and jumping in a thin white tshirt, especially cross country in freezing rain, as I got teased for the 'bouncing'.
Year 10-11 it was awesome because we could choose what we wanted to do, I played netball, table tennis, aerobics and swam, all with my group of friends. I still love and participate in all those sports now. If PE had continued in the same vein as earlier I think it would have put me off exercise for life!

Hated it in 1st & 2nd year, the kit was dreadful, revolting gym knickers & aertex top. We used to play 'bench ball' for weeks on end while the teachers had coffee & on 1 horrific occasion we joined the boys for team games. The boys had to bend down & run between the girls' legs, I'd just started my periods & it was so awful. Going back a few years but still. 3rd year was better, we were waved off on cross country runs by our coffee drinking teachers who stayed at school. Lots of girls took the chance for a walk & fag but I quite liked it & got on the team. Teachers liked you a lot more then & it made PE life easier. 4th & 5th year were actually brilliant, we did ice skating & bowling & made our own way home from town afterwards. It was a mixed bag for sure, my dd seems to find it very similar now.

I always got picked last for teams.
I wasn't bad at sport at all, just unpopular.

I was fairly fit and a decent runner but hated school PE at secondary age.
Dd has never enjoyed it at School either.

Secondary school PE is purely for the sports team type kids. It's all they ever seem bothered about, back when I was at school and from what I can tell from friends with secondary aged children it's the same now. The only ones who seem to like it are those who are in school sports teams.

The rest are, at best, ignored and left to get on with it and, at worse, shouted at or belittled for not being as good.

I don't think secondary PE does anything to help general fitness of teens, in particular girls. It needs a complete overhaul really.

I hated it, i hated the way they picked teams, two people got picked to pick their teams I always got picked lsst, I hope they don't still pick teams like that ? In secondary school the communal showers with no curtains horrible, horrible experience,, I didn't mind when we went to the local leisure centre to do swimming but that wasent often.

My kids primary is sports obsessed and is a miserable place to be if you are not good at sport. It wasn’t like that when eldest went, but new head has shifted the focus. Any achievement outside sports is ignored.

Why??? In all the time my kids have been there, only 2 boys have gone on to achieve anything (professional football teams) so it is not like they are producing the next David Beckham regularly. Other kids have achieved in the arts (film, tv roles - Radio 2 short story comp) but these are never mentioned.

I actually hate the environment it produces - it is not worth doing anything unless you win.

Luckily the local secondary school we’ve chosen is much more rounded. DS has just started and still hates PE but at least feels he is recognised for other skills/aptitude’s.

I think that PE teaching has improved since I was at school - I certainly hope so.
Not sure I can add anything much to what others have said but just to say that I too hated it and the sadistic, uncouth, crass teachers.

I remember playing hockey with a bright yellow ball. Because you couldn't see the white ball. Because of all the snow on the ground!! Us in polo shirts and gym skirts, teacher in tracksuit, jumper, hat, scarf, gloves and coat.

The only thing I hated about PE was the mandatory "shower" afterwards. We'd have to pop our swimming costumes on after exercising to shower in a communal row...without soap, observed by the PE teacher.

I still fail to see what difference a smelly teenager stepping under freezing cold water for all of 5 seconds could make to their fragrance or hygiene.

It was purely an exercise in control and had no real merit. I hated it. The actual running about stuff didn't bother me even though if I'm running now it's because the apocalypse is upon us and you should run too

At secondary school we had to do a run then swim. I had an asthma attack most weeks but the teachers didn't notice because I was shy and quiet and compliant.

In first year of secondary school in a PE lesson (first lesson of the day) we were divided into groups and the group I was in was being supervised by a 6th former. I misjudged my landing on the trampet and caught my foot between the springs, fell on the crash mat and the trampet fell on top of me.

I had a pain in my side and was told to get changed and rest in the sick room.

The pain was off the scale but I didn't tell anyone. Three hours later the teacher came looking for me and told me to go back to class. I nearly passed out as I tried to walk along the corridor. So she took me home and suggested that my mum might want to take me to the GP as I might have pulled a muscle.

The surgery was closed so my mum and aunt took me to A&E where all hell broke loose as I had not pulled a muscle but sustained serious kidney damage and was haemorrhaging like mad.

I was in hospital for three weeks and off school for two months. The PE teacher rang my mum and said that I need never do PE or games again. I considered that a fair deal!

This thread brings back ghastly memories of communal showers and those awful navy gym knickers that clearly showed the outline of any chunky doorstep sanitary towels available at the time (1960’s/70’s).
Thankfully, after 2nd year we had a new PE teacher.
A sweet, kind woman who had been widowed on her honeymoon ( her DH died in a car crash, poor soul) - she fought the headmaster for us to get proper shorts, and she’s the only reason I can now swim, as she allowed armbands and floats, and was unfailingly gentle and encouraging.
Mrs P, if you’re still alive and reading this - thank you!

Hated it. I'm dyspraxic and hated the competitive elements and being shouted at for not running fast enough.

3 fellow dyspraxics on this thread already.

Something really has to be changed.