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

[Spied]

Torture
Our two obese female P.E teachers would sit on the grass sidelines commenting on the overweight girls and comments/laughing at our choice of trainers etc. They were cruel and would be sacked in this day and age.
All they did was tell us which equipment we needed to get out and sneer on as we muddled through whatever sport we were doing that day.
If it was raining we we're indoors in two teams racing the length of the sports hall.
That's it.
We never got a sniff of real sport.
What an easy job they had.
Not a chance they'd cut it nowadays.

[OohKittens]

Hated it and the embarrassment of knowing you would be first out in the bleep test. Did other places do the bleep test?

[nosswith]

I am a man so my experiences by definition and those of other men will be different from women/girls. We don't have periods to contend with.

Enjoyed some parts, disliked others. For a boy the choice between rugby and football (soccer) is almost a binary one, and fortunately football was played at the school I went to. Some boys really hated PE of any kind, though the only two I have known as adults have found sports or exercise they enjoy.

[JER27]

PE and games lessons were a nightmare. I remember John Betjeman's phrase "the greatest dread of all - the dread of games". I did not know then that I had a now-recognized inherited disability which made me clumsy. I remember being good at French, but the double French lesson passed in a blur of misery because it was followed by games I was always getting hurt. Unfortunately we had a games mistress and head who were most unsympathetic. It turned me off any exercise for life.

[edwinbear]

Loved it. I was sporty and on all the school teams, still sporty now, as are the DC. We really value sport as a family so prioritise it. DS runs and swims at county level and does about 20hrs a week, DD is a squad level gymnast. I’m not sure if it’s nature or nurture.

[CrunchyNutNC]

Yes oohkittens

It was awful.

It also meant they knew the fitness level of each child, but then did zero with that information to make sure they built fitness of all of them.

[LuckyMum96]

@nosswith

I am a man so my experiences by definition and those of other men will be different from women/girls. We don't have periods to contend with.

Enjoyed some parts, disliked others. For a boy the choice between rugby and football (soccer) is almost a binary one, and fortunately football was played at the school I went to. Some boys really hated PE of any kind, though the only two I have known as adults have found sports or exercise they enjoy.

Some really interesting points - it's not just girls who are put off sports by PE lessons - the stereotypical rugby loving guy is not every person who attends school!!!

[TartanDMs]

Torture. I loved PE at primary school (shinty, netball, jumping games) but at about school it was all competitive and if you were rubbish you were shouted at, and I made the mistake of telling the PE teacher that I was unhappy. She made me do hockey for two whole terms instead of alternating with netball every 6 weeks, because I "needed to get better at hockey" - I was always picked last for teams and wasn't allowed to use my inhaler. I started forging notes from my mum to get out of it.
In third year I was diagnosed with arthritis in my elbow and my mum (who had similarly hated PE) wrote to the school and got me out of PE permanently. I got to sit in the library instead, reading. All that could have been avoided if that one teacher hadn't taken a dislike to me being honest and asking for help.

[MaddeningtheUnhelpful]

I enjoyed PE. So much so I took it up until A level. I was pretty good at team sports and had sporty mates so it was fun. My competitive sports of choice though were now through school (swimming and Dressage) so it was an enjoyable subject but hasn't left me with a life long love of any of the sports that were taught

[TartanDMs]

*big school not about school

[CrunchyNutNC]

Oh yes and give the bigger girls who liked to bully you a hockey stick...that'll end well...

[Justgivemewine]

Ritual torture and humiliation

Freezing to death in hardly any clothes while waiting to be picked for a team led by the teachers favourites, the same poor kids always being picked last.

Our swimming teacher was such a sadistic bastard. I went from being a non swimmer in the shallow end to being screamed out for not being able to do butterfly stroke within a few weeks and ended up getting my mum to write a letter excusing me from swimming lessons for the rest of the year. Funnily enough though I now love swimming and am a bloody good swimmer!

Also loved gym even though I was rubbish. I guess I just liked climbing on things.

[AndreaTwo]

I was always fairly active as a child and didn't mind PE too much. I wasn't good enough to get into any of the school teams at secondary, but wasn't completely useless either.
Compulsory showers came as a bit of a shock, but I suppose we got used to them. For outdoor PE / games we could wear culottes or a PE skirt, but indoors it was gym knickers - not great when you were on your period with the rather bulky towels available then.

Several decades on I still enjoy jogging, cycling and, until lockdown, going to the gym and swimming.

[LuckyMum96]

@AndreaTwo

I was always fairly active as a child and didn't mind PE too much. I wasn't good enough to get into any of the school teams at secondary, but wasn't completely useless either.
Compulsory showers came as a bit of a shock, but I suppose we got used to them. For outdoor PE / games we could wear culottes or a PE skirt, but indoors it was gym knickers - not great when you were on your period with the rather bulky towels available then.

Several decades on I still enjoy jogging, cycling and, until lockdown, going to the gym and swimming.

PE kit is almost as if it's designed to humiliate - gym knickers? Why not leggings and a top, at least that way girls feel comfortable doing the activity

[TartanDMs]

Oh and cross country - running through the city centre in a polo shirt and red knickers (not even shorts) for the whole world to see. How is that even appropriate? Not allowed to wear netball skirt on cross country days, and jogging bottoms, shorts or leggings were not even part of the uniform for any occasion.

[wherethewavesarehighest]

Torture. I was fit and good at running but rubbish at team sports. I was never picked for any teams and my pe teacher even made fun of me in my school report. Far too much emphasis on who was good at winning even though we weren't competing against anyone. Utter shite.

[OneKeyAtATime]

I didn't realise so many had had bad experiences of PE. At my school you either enjoyed it or felt it was a bit of a non event. Like me and science :D

[Toebarb]

I enjoyed PE at school and continued to play team sports until I was 30.

[beansonbread]

Absolute torture! Even thinking about PE lessons now years and years on I still feel sick. My hatred of school PE definitely made me less incline to take up sport or exercise as an adult.

PE in my schools (middle and high but high especially) was a chance for the PE teachers to show off their elite athletes and belittle and embarrass anyone who wasn’t sporty/fit. They would set up races so you’d have the athletics team racing 1 on 1 with the slowest members of the class - it was nothing short of humiliating. The teachers would form teams for games using the sporty people for one team and everyone else on the other. There was no thought to developing anyone who wasn’t naturally sporty or fit, it was all about improving the people on the cross country team, or sports teams or athletics team. I absolutely hated PE from year 5 onwards.

The only term in 6 years of PE that I enjoyed was a term when you could pick an option for your lessons. I chose dance (all the sporty people chose athletics, tennis etc) and an external coach came in to teach us. As the sporty people were all out the way it gave everyone else a chance to shine and just try things out without fear of being mocked.

[CoffeeBeansGalore]

I've had some awful pe teachers. One winter in Wiltshire, aged about 10. We were playing netball in artex shirts, shorts & trainers. Teacher on the sidelines in full length furry coat & matching muff (yes, really), plus boots. It started snowing. She shouted at us for saying we were cold & it wasn't that bad!

[MrsAvocet]

Torture for me. There wasn't much on offer at my school and I was no good at any of it, which added to the bullying I already endured for other reasons. I didn't discover any sports/exercise that I enjoyed until I was in my late 30s. Annoying really as I found a couple of things that I think I could have been quite good at if I had started when young, but that's life. I now coach kids on a community club. My old PE teachers would probably die of shock if they knew!
2 out of my 3 children are very sporty, the other one isn't interested at all, but even the 2 sporty ones don't get a lot out of school sports to be honest, its all extra curricular. That said I don't think its quite as bad in my day as there is a bit more variety offered, especially higher up the school.

[nostaples]

Torture.

I get that team sport should be part of PE but feel strongly that with all the current stats about obesity, exercise and women taking part in exercise in particular, there should be much more focus on fitness and building life long good habits and enjoyment.

I was rubbish at team sport and hated it but think I am probably much fitter now than many of my sporty counterparts. It has taken me a long, long time to find exercise that gives me pleasure and to find out that I am much stronger and can push myself more than I ever thought possible. School PE did the opposite of that.

[Iheardarumour]

Hated it. Abhorred it. I was never competitive and as an introvert hated being part of a team. I didn't see the point in chucking this somewhere, or jumping over there, or running around the countryside getting muddy. I much preferred to ride my bike and swim, alone, in the local pool.

My daughter is the same. She is 14 and can't see the point of it. She walks to school and back each day (about a four mile round trip), she likes dancing computer games, and does Ring Fit on the Nintendo. In other words FUN. PE isn't fun.

If PE was more geared to staying fit, being healthy in mind and body, and eating well, rather than all this competitive nonsense, it might engage the children who are not naturally gifted in sports.

[Woodlandanimals]

Torture for me. Forced to play netball. The game was full of bitches at my school.

I was naturally good at football and the male PE teachers used to taunt me saying “ooooh shame you’re JUST a girl”

Female PE teachers would keep note of your period so they knew if you were lying or not. Had to show my PE teacher proof I was on my period (irregular) - she told me I HAD to wear a tampon for swimming class it was hell.

Saw her in town a few months ago and she made me feel quite nauseous. I’m 36 now - you’d think I’d get over it by now.

[beansonbread]

Oh and I didn’t even get started on PE knickers! As someone who was always a little bigger than average in school and therefore could have done with developing a love of sport, shoving me in PE knickers and making me compete against people who went on to be in national teams did nothing for my self esteem.