PE - did it promote a life long love of sport or was it ritual torture?

[LuckyMum96]

Just that really, for me it was mixed - too much PE was focussed on the school teams though and not enough on general exercise and activity

I suspect the people who enjoyed PE lessons become PE teachers and that is why the whole horrible system continues. They think everyone who hates it is an unfit whinger who just needs to be encouraged and will never get it that their approach is the ultimate in discouraging.

@unmarkedbythat

I suspect the people who enjoyed PE lessons become PE teachers and that is why the whole horrible system continues. They think everyone who hates it is an unfit whinger who just needs to be encouraged and will never get it that their approach is the ultimate in discouraging.

I rest my case.

@Janevaljane

I don’t agree as I think it would be failing children not to help them be active

At primary, yes. But the kids that hate PE at secondary level should not have to do it. They are old enough to take personal responsibility for their fitness. Having a class where even 5% don't want to do it just spoils it for everyone else. Ideally have clubs after school they could do instead. If they choose to do nothing that's down to them.

Yes agree the primary, very important. As for older I agree that by yr10 it should be voluntary (I’m not sure if it is Ds dropped it to do all sciences but not sure if this is common). Year 9 maybe too. Yr 7 and 8 I’d probably keep.

I despised PE. I love sport and exercise now! Luckily I decided to try it again in my early 20s.

Yes agree keep 7 and 8. Then make it something you opt in to. I'd imagine the majority of boys would do it, and perhaps half the girls.

@bigmugs

I genuinely believe that school PE should be voluntary. I enjoyed it and so did my dcs, but so many hate it. It must be soul destroying for both the reluctant pupils and the teachers who have to try and teach.

I disagree- I think it's most important for those who are reluctant. These are probably the children who are not doing exercise outside school either and would benefit most from appropriate lessons. It's only soul destroying for the pupils because those who struggle are expected to be in the same class, doing the same activity and expected to keep up with the very able students (often in the context of a team sport when everyone feels the struggling student holds back the others). This is not done in any other subject. As for it being soul destroying for the teacher- why? Why don't you think a sports teacher would get something out of helping a struggling pupil progress? I don't think it needs to be voluntary, just taught differently and by teachers who want to help all pupils not just the school team.

But far too often sports teachers seem to think that they can make competitors and sportspeople out of non-competitive and non-sporty people.

They can't. It will just cause frustration and humiliation all around as this thread amply demonstrates You cannot make someone into something or someone that they aren't. You cannot, for example, mould an introvert who would just like to exercise for themselves in solitude into a competitive team sports player. Nor someone who has physical and coordination difficulties. It doesn't stop some of those bulldozers teachers from trying to though.

I include myself in my own categories of an introvert and a less than perfectly coordinated student. School PE lessons seemed designed to make team players and competitors out of everyone, which was just never going to happen.

PE in schools should concentrate on helping the kids to create a good habit in exercising for their health, so make it fun and give a wide range of activities, not just team sports.

The lessons should not simply be used as additional time to coach the start sporty kids on the school teams. Those kids can do it in a separate group, or as extracurricular stuff.

PE in schools should concentrate on helping the kids to create a good habit in exercising for their health, so make it fun and give a wide range of activities, not just team sports

I think it is like this is most primary schools.

At secondary you'd need lots of PE teachers to offer this.

The lessons should not simply be used as additional time to coach the start sporty kids on the school teams

I'd imagine it's very counter intuitive to deliberately ignore kids who are really good and interested in your lessons.

I disagree- I think it's most important for those who are reluctant. These are probably the children who are not doing exercise outside school either and would benefit most from appropriate lessons

Have you seen the many posts from those of us who were active outside school but hated PE?

Oh I well remember the day when the PE teacher had us all doing 10 sit ups. When she sneered at me and asked why I wasn't doing it I said I'd finished.

So she made me do them again, and I did while her sporty favourites were struggling with their first 10.

She was so visibly pissed off.

We always did sit up and press ups as part of out warm up at Ju-Jitsu.

I think there should be some form of exercise in schools but it doesn't need to be PE as it currently is. Keep PE teachers for GCSEs but bring in instructors / people qualified to teach outside school and have a range of activities, ballroom dancing, tumbling, cheerleading, martial arts, fencing, spinning.

Having options apart from competitive and team sports would really help.
I'm trying to think what I enjoyed at school and I was quite happy at swimming when we were going for distance rather than speed.
Unfortunately the gym teachers were competitive types and it would have been against character to have an ethos of sports for all, rather than focusing on winning.
One gym teacher was also a primary year teacher and inspired such loathing in me that I had to walk away when I saw her last year at a 30 year school reunion.

@sashh

I disagree- I think it's most important for those who are reluctant. These are probably the children who are not doing exercise outside school either and would benefit most from appropriate lessons

Have you seen the many posts from those of us who were active outside school but hated PE?

Oh I well remember the day when the PE teacher had us all doing 10 sit ups. When she sneered at me and asked why I wasn't doing it I said I'd finished.

So she made me do them again, and I did while her sporty favourites were struggling with their first 10.

She was so visibly pissed off.

We always did sit up and press ups as part of out warm up at Ju-Jitsu.

I think there should be some form of exercise in schools but it doesn't need to be PE as it currently is. Keep PE teachers for GCSEs but bring in instructors / people qualified to teach outside school and have a range of activities, ballroom dancing, tumbling, cheerleading, martial arts, fencing, spinning.

Do you think this is within the budget of a normal comprehensive school?

Torture. I was a fat, awkward teenager to whom puberty gave acne and stretchmarks instead of breasts and a waist, so it was assumed that I would be shit at sport - and so I was always last to be picked for the team. PE teachers ignored me at all times except when I'd come in last at cross country running, when they would say "Oh, JimmyJabs, you didn't even try, did you?"

Years later, I decided to lose weight and tentatively joined a gym, and found out that, with some direction from a personal trainer, I actually loved running and circuits, and that I had stamina and coordination. I had always had the potential to be good at it if anybody had actually bothered to encourage me instead of chastising me for not being naturally gifted.

Do you think this is within the budget of a normal comprehensive school?

It depends on the school and what is around it. I've been in a bowling alley when a class from the local comp came in.

Instructors are cheaper to pay than teachers and can be on termly contracts.

A dance class doesn't need specialist equipment, just someone who can teach dance.

@Janevaljane

The lessons should not simply be used as additional time to coach the start sporty kids on the school teams

I'd imagine it's very counter intuitive to deliberately ignore kids who are really good and interested in your lessons.

The lessons should not simply be used as additional time to coach the start sporty kids on the school teams. Those kids can do it in a separate group, or as extracurricular stuff.

if you're going to quote me, do it properly. I never started nor implied ignoring the more able, just that if coaching was necessary, it be done in a separate group or at another time.

if you're going to quote me, do it properly

I quoted you exactly?

@JimmyJabs

Torture. I was a fat, awkward teenager to whom puberty gave acne and stretchmarks instead of breasts and a waist, so it was assumed that I would be shit at sport - and so I was always last to be picked for the team. PE teachers ignored me at all times except when I'd come in last at cross country running, when they would say "Oh, JimmyJabs, you didn't even try, did you?"

Years later, I decided to lose weight and tentatively joined a gym, and found out that, with some direction from a personal trainer, I actually loved running and circuits, and that I had stamina and coordination. I had always had the potential to be good at it if anybody had actually bothered to encourage me instead of chastising me for not being naturally gifted.

I do have sympathy but hiring a personal trainer is not something that can be emulated by a teacher who has a class of 30 to teach for 45 mins.

Torture and humiliation.

Torture - take the fat nerdy unpopular girl and make her struggle through a few hours of pain every week while everyone laughs.

I clearly remember getting a single block of 6 "local gym" lessons, going on the rowing machine and thinking "I can actually do this!" and then getting lauged at and incredulously booted off by the PE teacher because I was on it too long. I still remember, 25 years later, the clear feeling of "...oh. yeah, never mind then, forget it". Zero support at all.

Things I actually like as an adult - line dancing, archery and longsword, things that you dont have to already be sporty to actually not be painful.

Same. Torture and humiliation by a bitch of a teacher who picked on less able pupils for public shaming if you couldn't jump the high jump or hurdles.
She also forced naked girls to line up and take the register after hockey, then stood and stared at said girls in the communal shower.
I complied when I was younger, but then managed to get away with things like running in after hockey, wetting my feet and towel and pretending I'd had my shower.
How this was not formally dealt with (1980's), I don't know and I suspect she knew how inappropriate her behaviour was as I don't recall being challenged on my fairly obvious ruse of pretending to shower.
I actually think this is shocking and abusive, looking back.
Don't know this is relevant, but it was a single sex, expensive selective public school. My parents actually paid for this level of inappropriateness.

They think everyone who hates it is an unfit whinger who just needs to be encouraged and will never get it that their approach is the ultimate in discouraging. I talked to a PE teacher about how humiliating it can be for the kids who aren't good at it. He said it was wonderful to see kids being encouraged, all their class mates at the end of crosscountry clapping and cheering for the kids struggling in at the end. I asked him if he'd ever asked those kids if the clapping and cheering was encouraging or humiliating. He didn't answer me but it was clear from his face that he had never asked them and it had never crossed his mind that it could be humiliating. I hope it might have given him something to think about.

I do have sympathy but hiring a personal trainer is not something that can be emulated by a teacher who has a class of 30 to teach for 45 mins. Kids who struggle to learn to read or do maths get some one to one time but nothing for the kids who are no good at sport.

I couldn't catch or throw a ball to save my life, I was a good runner and asked if we could do some athletics. I was told it wasn't ladylike, I mean like hockey is ladylike.

So make it non compulsory! Ridiculous to think that the posters who have said how awful it was were getting anything out of it.

I couldn't catch or throw a ball to save my life, I was a good runner and asked if we could do some athletics. I was told it wasn't ladylike, I mean like hockey is ladylike

Blimey, where and when did you go to school I was at a shit comp in the late 70s early 80s and even we did athletics.