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

Weight is 80% diet and 20% exercise, why have you allowed your child to become overweight? You need to help him right now by getting advice on a suitable diet for your son. You are setting him up for a lifetime of issues that will be far worse than being embarrassed in pe.

I’d be furious and complaining to the school

@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.

Rubbish.

What any decent teacher needs to do is try to instill a love of getting fit or at least a tolerance. They need to find a sport that the child loves rather than pushing them to do something they hate and will probably always hate, if this is how they go about it.

In the late 70's and early 80's I loathed PE with a passion as I was terrible at team sports. The final year was a revelation as we were allowed to try other things and I loved badminton. I thought this style of teaching was long gone.

I do believe that there is a sport for everyone, but running is not for even a majority of children.

I have mild CP and this thread is bringing back the endless LOLZ from 1980s/1990s school PE lessons.

Can't say I miss those days... 🙄

YANBU, OP.

Is he your child?

I had a PE teacher like that. It put me off PE entirely and i avoided exercise after I left school. It was a bit of a surprise when I learned that there were fun ways to exercise as an adult but I wouldn't be surprised if many adults avoid exercise after embarrassing experiences at school. I'll never be a fan of running (ugh shin splints) but I did couch to 5k a few years ago and actually managed to run 5k by the end. Something I never achieved when I was at school.

I’d be so angry if this was my child too Op.

My course of action would be to wait until I’d calmed down to approach the school about this. Perhaps emailing tomorrow rather than today.

I’d also be concerned as to why my child was the most unfit, unless of course there are medical issues. I’d sit down with my child and discuss sports activities and groups they’d like to join to improve their fitness in an enjoyable way.

Are they making them run an additional lap though, or are they given a set number of laps to complete and it just takes this child much longer than the other kids to do it? So the teacher says run 3 laps and this child runs 2 laps in the time it takes the others to run the three, so then everyone is stood waiting while they complete their 3rd lap?

It's tricky, as if the teacher says every run 3 laps but little Johnny run 2 laps, then it is immediately singling the child out. As a previous poster said, getting everyone to run for a set time length is better, so that everyone can do their best, without the humiliation of being the last kid to finish.

For everyone commenting on this child's weight etc, back off. Stay on point. OP didn't ask for dietary advice or comments on her parenting.

This is awful. I was always the last kid in school fitness runs because I have exercise induced asthma! Not due to lack of fitness. And forcing me (as a child) to run another lap would not only be humiliating it would be ableist and could trigger an asthma attack.

I’d definitely be having words with a school that does this. Any marginal fitness benefit to a fully able child would surely be cancelled out by the mental health detriment.

I was that child in the 70s. Hopeless at organised sport and made to suffer humiliation because of it and it was a principal reason why I disliked school.

The whole ethos of team sport is misplaced in schools and society. I have been very successful in the workplace and have always loved work. My sportiness has had no bearing on my life after school and I have never been judged by my inability to catch or hit a ball - rather by my ability to catch one of the many plates I metaphorically juggle and catch it before it falls, by being helpful and responding to things in an intellectually dynamic way and by being able to read a room.

Funnily enough the sporty girls all stayed in my provincial home town, all now at 60ish have the same haircut and dare I say look their age and some - not helped by their bulk. I may never have played sport well but I had the courage to leave and do different things. I am also relatively fit, not through organised sport but through walking briskly, always being active and having an agile mind.

If there were any benefits they arose through resilience and developing the inner confidence to deal with the sport driven piss taking. The same sort of nastiness that benefits nobody long term in the world of work.

Completely unacceptable. It's the kind of behaviour that puts kids off exercise for life.

Totally agree.

It's absolutely not on, and of course it should be raised.
Do make sure your son has given you the whole story first though, as, as others have said, it sounds very anachronistic.
Be prepared though for the teacher to raise concerns about his weight.

The thing is if you're crap at any other subject they try t make you do better. If you are crap at maths sure, maybe you get extra maths, but the teacher should be working with you to ensure you understand the concept. It's no good saying "you did this lot wrong, here's another sheet to do wrong".

This is a brilliant way to make sure a child never wants to exercise again. Awful.

It's rubbish. Like making us all do five miles cross country in the late 80s/ early 90s, rather than doing a bit of training or encouraging us to walk a bit, run a bit or power walk it instead of telling us off for walking. Oh and while wearing basically large pants, no shorts even or tracky bottoms while you were on your period. PE stands for physical education, which is what it should be, about getting your body to move and enjoying that feeling, not "playing team sport" or forcing kids to run. OK you might not enjoy everything but it should be about encouraging kids to find ways of moving that they do enjoy.

I would be fucking raging. My DS is really slow at running and if someone did this to him I would be livid.

The teacher would be better teaching the kids how to run (ie don't sprint the first 100 yards and then gasp the rest of the way round) and then tell all the kids to jog as far as they can within a certain time period. Then it doesn't matter who's fastest and who's slowest because they'll all finish at the same time. It helps if you have a track but it can work in a field as well.

But heaven forbid that a PE teacher actually teaches, rather than spending time with the stars who already know how to run/play hockey/whatever. As others have said, no wonder kids don't like PE, because they are ridiculed for being rubbish, instead of being taught how to be better.

Horrible and humiliating. Also everyone has bad days - girls may be on TOTM and lacking stamina, kids may have slept badly or be recovering from a cold. Better to focus on improving the child’s own average time over the term. The comments on weight are really unhelpful too - putting kids on diets can backfire spectacularly. There’s so much growth and development happening at that age, it’s best to let that happen and focus on nutrition and keeping active for general health

Yes he’s my child
He’s not massively overweight. He just looks regular size in his clothes. You wouldn’t immediately say fat kid.

We have lots of issues at the moment, dyslexia, adhd, demand avoidance. I think he’s on the spectrum.
Had lots of problems since he started senior school. Trying to get some sort of balance with the school but ultimately they’re trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. They’re not flexible

My DS says that his PE teachers are just the same.. Basically they beast any child who isn’t quick enough or doesn’t do well enough.

There has been a bad fire around here that has been belching smoke into the atmosphere for weeks, and that and the bad weather has meant them doubling up classes and doing PE inside. One teacher’s class have been playing games against the other teacher’s class, and the losing class have to do 35 press ups and 20 squats each game they lose. They can play four or five games per lesson. It’s a competitive thing between the teachers apparently.

Thankfully my DS is quite fit so it doesn’t bother him. I could imagine another situation where I would be quite pissed off however. It does feel rather cruel and backward.

@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.

It IS harsh. I was one of those children who hated PE. I struggled to keep up in races with the other children, and I wouldn't have managed to do an extra lap of the playing field. However, I walked , skipped, joined in with playground running games, roller skated and cycled. I was fit. I just couldn't compete with other children in races. The teacher that @Veuvelily is talking about was unnecessarily cruel.

It’s a bit of fun

I wasn't overweight as a child. It didn't mean I could run fast or catch a ball!

shocking 1970's behaviour