Making the unfit kid who comes last run round the field again?

[Veuvelily]

Can anyone tell me the logic here.
What is the games teacher trying to achieve?

The child has tried his best and feels like he’s being punished unfairly
Plus he’s then used up all his energy, so is tired for the actual games lesson

Sadist not masochist lol

That is unconscionable. You should absolutely go to the head and report this as bullying.

As for those who say it is in the child's interest to run more, I promise you that all that extra lap will achieve is to make him feel pain and shame, hate sports and give up on exercise altogether. This will not be good for his health.

No - it’s wrong.

Cuntish behaviour and humiliating for the poor child 😡

@Hellocatshome

Erm this might sound really harsh but the only way you stop being unfit is by exercising more, so running around the field again is actually beneficial to the child's fitness. Obviously has to be done in the right way with the right explanations etc and not done to humiliate the child.

Exactly how would a teacher do that without it being humiliating? What the teacher can do is have a word with the parent if it’s a real problem, on the other hand - someone has to be last! There is no excuse for this cruel behaviour at all.

@Hellocatshome

If a child struggled with sums, would they make them do an extra page whilst everyone else looks on??

Its a strange way of thinking that if a child struggles in PE they should just get to continue struggling and not try to improve but if a child struggles in maths they get set extra work. My son is very athletic but absolutely shit at maths, he has to do extra maths work and stay behind at breaks/after school to do more. Yes he isnt being stared at by his peers but they all know why he isnt around at breaks. Do we know the child has to run an extra lap while everyone stands and stares?

Yes, we do know that. They’ve all finished and he came last and is sent do another lap. And the analogy of your son doing another page of maths - badly, whilst everyone watches him struggle is a good one. Totally different to getting separate, private, SEN support.

I was this kid in school in the 90s. Stuff like this brought on an amazing amount of shame I'm still dealing with and an eating disorder! They need to know better this day in age. I'd go for the jugular.

It wasn’t ‘practice’ to improve it was bullying. School ‘Coaches’ don’t have to have qualified teacher status and don’t necessarily have the level of emotional intelligence required. The ‘teacher’ is a bully.

Sounds like something from my school days in the 60's. One day my friend was a bit late for a PE lesson (netball) The the teacher made her get changed on the side of the netball court which was right next to a boys class room. If that had happened to one of my kids when they were at school I would have raised the roof about it

My God that happened in the 90s in my school, is it still happening?

I’d complain OP, all it does is reinforce the idea in that child’s head that exercise is punishment.

Nothing short of bullying.

Apologies I misread when you said he was 13 and 5ft 9”

I still don’t think it is that bad. Ds is about that height and weight and he uses weights and is very muscular
I used to know a woman who weighed 11stone at 5ft 3” but was a size 8 (old size 8). She worked out daily and didn’t have an ounce of fat on her.
Bmi is a very blunt tool and doesn’t take into account muscle weighing more than fat.

I would assume the strongest man in the world has a BMI in the obese or morbidly obese and unfit category

Arguably someone who is the most unfit needs more exercise to become fit. This happened in my school in the 1990s. I didn't have a problem with it.

This is humiliation and bullying and that is certainly not the way to make a child fitter. That would have made me dread any kind of exercise even more and therefore defeats the purpose. They have also pointed out the difference of an individuals fitness/ability to the other children which could also lead to class bullying. If that were my child I would be having words.

I was not overweight at school but I hated sports and always went off sick on sports day.

Sports teacher: you dont like sport do you member?

Me: no miss. Im no good at it and i dont see the point.

Sports teacher: you cant go through life avoiding things just because you dont like them.

Me: Look Miss, Im top of the class in 5 academic subjects and its those I will be putting down on application forms. I will be going into one of the professions. Im not looking for a job as a sports teacher.

Sports teacher: Youve got an answer for everything. Your a cheeky girl.

Me: No Miss, you did ask me and I answered you.

Unfit people need more exercise but without the public humiliation?

You wound'nt send the hypermobile person to a plyometrics session or expect a morbidly obese person to do the hurdles?

Being slow or the worst at running doesn't necessarily make you unfit. I can't run for toffee, hate it, it makes my legs hurt, I get a stitch and I can't breathe. My dh has run marathons. But if you get us on bikes he can't keep up with me for speed or distance.

Even if the child is unfit, making them run further will not make them fitter. It will just potentially exhaust them to the point of collapse.

Fitness is a gradual process and a small amount of exercise every day achieves more than running a long distance once a week.

I can't believe this sort of old school bullying still goes on
I was always the last one, despite actually trying hard. I developed a coping mechanism of pretending it didn't bother me by insouciantly jogging.
Inside, I was dying.
Any teacher who 'makes a public example' of a student is a nasty bastard. You wouldn't do it to a child struggling academically so why do it in PE?

Just because a child comes last in a race, doesn’t mean they’re necessarily the most unfit though. Not everyone is built for sprinting, in the same way not everyone is built for weight lifting or endurance races. I’d want to ask the teacher if they punished or humiliated the children who weren’t good at other sports as well. It’ll be hard for them to argue it’s not singling your child out if the teacher only uses this tactic for the this one sport.

@Patsyanna

Sounds like something from my school days in the 60's. One day my friend was a bit late for a PE lesson (netball) The the teacher made her get changed on the side of the netball court which was right next to a boys class room. If that had happened to one of my kids when they were at school I would have raised the roof about it

And I suppose you would complain about having to do PE in pants and vest if someone forget their PE kit (assuming PE is indoors and single sex). No wonder kids of today are soft and lacking standards.

Durhhh! Damn right I would! I have standards and boundaries!

But was he made to do an extra lap as punishment for being unfit?
Maybe he made no effort, just dawdled around?
maybe he was defiant/dismissive when the PE teacher tried to encourage him to run?
Maybe the P. E teacher is sadistic?

If a child doesn't bother trying in maths - they still have to do the work and re-do it if it's obvious they haven't tried, I don't see why it's any different for P. E?
And yes, I was rubbish at P. E at school!!

@Floralnomad

If I were the parent I would be in having words , that is bullying .

This

I honestly thought the era of sadistic PE teachers was a thing of the 80s and 90s,I thought things had moved on.

I will definitely say that PE teachers treating children like that will put the children off PE and fitness forever and they'll skive PE at any opportunity they can,I know it did to me as I ended up off sick for a week due to those bleep tests as being forced to go further than I could by a sadistic PE teacher made my asthma flare up and I was always last and never any good at PE.

The teacher needs reporting, definitely, as it is bullying. Doing that to children it will only be a matter of time before she pushes a kid too far who ends up poorly as a result and then she'll have a whole load of crap to contend with as a result.

My experiences with PE at school always make me think of a quote from a Paul Merton sketch- "He had the IQ of a grapefruit so they made him a PE teacher"

PE Teachers who do that to kids basically shouldn't be PE teachers. The only benefit anyone gets out of that kind of behaviour is the PE teacher themselves getting a power trip off it.