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

[TheoneandObi]

Actually at varsity level sport gets better again. In both DC's colleges there were such thi bc s as the fifth football and netball teams, so among a relatively small cohort there was wriggle room to be involved at any level. Then of course there were the stratospheric full varsity squads but that was fine because you could still have fun at the lower levels. It was horses for courses. So if you can weather school sport and PE there is light at the end of the tunnel. DD who hate school Pe and yes, was bullied over her lack of skill and shyness at team sport became head of her college gym and instituted a programme to get women members and had an all women's hour and specialist coaching. It's one of the things I'm proudest of - that she overcame the crap from school!

[JohnMcCainsDeathStare]

Varsity sport has changed for the better in the past 20 years, just I remember at Durham 25 odd years ago it did kinda suck in that there were college teams as well as Varsity but some of my friends who were into team sports were told to sod off since there wasn't much in the way of C or D teams.

[Valkadin]

A lifelong love, I was not exceptional though I did get on the cross country and hockey teams. I was however a very physical child and loved climbing trees, cycling at high speed and stuff like that. I have a spine issue that is worsening with age so my impact sport days are over.

One thing is I never gave a shit about was getting sweaty and grubby, I remember bare foot running through mud for the experience as a child through woodland, swimming in the sea in the snow, I got really told off arriving back home from that experience I was about 11 and my sister was about 8. I also remember running in a blizzard at a regional cross country event, I loved it. I was a pretty dangerous kid and hung out with quite a few boys as they were the tree climbers and jumping off the pier in to shallow water. It was incredibly dangerous but lots of fun.

About body shaming, when I was young in the 1970’s literally no kids were overweight. But I do remember many girls hating getting grubby and also worrying about showers and people seeing them naked. People were excused if they were having their period and I know some used to lie.

DH and DS are very sporty but really very decent, DH rowed for his college at Cambridge. His parents were the captains of their hockey team and met in their twenties at their hockey club. My Mother was a professional dancer and circus performer when young doing a high wire act on those ribbon things that hang down so we are both from physical families. She could still stick both her legs behind her head at almost 70 and his Mum taught yoga till she was 74.

So we were both raised by people who loved physical exertion.

[amusedbush]

PE was mandatory for the first four years of secondary school and my final PE lesson was the happiest day of my life.

To be honest though, I'd checked out long before that. I frequently "forgot" my kit and got detention for forging an excusal note from my mum more than once. When my friends and I did participate, we dicked about were a bit disruptive, like when we invented Tennis Badminton, which basically consisted of us grunting as loudly as possible while serving the shuttlecock.

By the final year of mandatory PE, the teacher took one look at me and my friends and sighed, "just go away and do... something". We found a ping pong table in a back room, which kept us out of sight for the year

[ChaToilLeam]

Looking at this thread, it appears that probably the best thing you could do to encourage adults to participate in sport or physical activity in later life is to take PE right out of the school curriculum. If the way it is being “taught” puts pupils off activity to the extent that they avoid exercise for YEARS after leaving school, it’s clearly an abject failure. I can’t understand how such awful teaching gets through observations and school unaddressed.

[ChaToilLeam]

*school inspections unaddressed, I mean to finish.

[JohnMcCainsDeathStare]

I went out of my way to avoid any organized physical activity for years out of school. Did things like LARPing, running, outdoor swimming and reenactment. Have played squash sporadically but no other ball sports.

[Topseyt]

@ChaToilLeam

Looking at this thread, it appears that probably the best thing you could do to encourage adults to participate in sport or physical activity in later life is to take PE right out of the school curriculum. If the way it is being “taught” puts pupils off activity to the extent that they avoid exercise for YEARS after leaving school, it’s clearly an abject failure. I can’t understand how such awful teaching gets through observations and school unaddressed.

Agree with that.

When I was at school the whole purpose of PE seemed to be fixated on trying to make competitive sports team members out of every single one of us, regardless of whether or not we had any aptitude or ability there or not. If you didn't you were simply regarded as a no-hoper.

[PercyKirke]

@ancientgran

If only the kids who were good at team sports had shown some team spirit to the kids who struggled. What I learned about team spirit was that if you were good at something it was fine to be nasty to people who weren't.

That is the abiding lesson I got from school PE as well.

[PercyKirke]

@Janevaljane

I presume it's easier for the outside examiner to judge students if they are taking part in officially organised events with rules, rather than doing press ups in their parents sitting room.

It would be a bit bizarre to do A level sport if you didn't actually enjoy sport

It is not "A level sport" it is A level Physical Education. There is a significant difference.

[Noideawottodo]

It is not "A level sport" it is A level Physical Education. There is a significant difference

That's semantics. It's basically sports science. You wouldn't get a thing out of it if all you were interested in was yoga and youtube videos.