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

@Veuvelily

Wrt diets- I’m treading very carefully here. Puberty, growth spurts, special needs, rock bottom self esteem, self consciousness. He eats plenty of fruit and vegetables and is exercising off his own bat. He doesn’t respond well to being told how to do things, so It’s not easy to impose an exercise regime.

His weight is a red herring.

Running round twice for being slow is bullying.

You complain that the practice is bullying and demand that it is stopped. You say I am withdrawing my child from PE until the teacher stops bullying them.

Being overwieght does not make bullying OK.

I also wondered what fitness benefit there was in standing around, waiting in a queue and sitting down because I was out and there was nothing else to do.

It was only 'girly' lessons that even made me out of breath since they would be aerobics/callasentics etc.

I am middle-aged mother so hardly a fitness icon to say the least.. 2 or 3 laps around a field is hardly a big deal is it?

I would be very concerned if my young teen was too unfit and "exhausted" for running an extra-lap that the rest of his class managed.

How can they be so unfit so young?

PS I am also an 80's child too.

The PE teacher is a thick sadist - that is the only conclusion I can reach. I would be kicking off big time. But then, I am a super fit, slim adult who bunked off PE everytime at school, because school PE is shite. Your child's experience exemplifies its shiteness - how to put a child of exercising in one stupid lesson.

@tattleandbagels

Bu that isn't what we are saying. We are saying that PE teachers treat everyone as if they should have the same ability. In other subjects you differentiate the tasks and the teaching to match the ability of the kids concerned. But PE teachers just assume that if you are slow or can't catch a ball, you aren't trying, rather than teaching you ways to get faster or improve technique.

exams are not designed around or cater for different abilities though..
The basic requirements for most sports is perfectly suitable to reachfor average children, the fitter ones just do better.

Well this is completely incorrect - in Maths for example you are put into ability sets and entered or a different the exam dependent on your level.

I will bet my mortgage that in no other subject in that school is the weakest pupil made to do their work again, publicly, in full view of the class.

@Veuvelily I do NOT want to panic you, but...
My DH used to do a lot of running at school - he was tall and thin (beanpole) but always got a stitch and ran through it.
He had a congenintal heart defect which wasn't diagnosed until he was in his 30s and had a heart attack.
Can you get your DS checked over? If he's active, he should be able to jog around the field without a stitch.

My school made me do the cross country - I couldn't run (dodgy ankles) so walked it if I couldn't sneak off home

I agree that it's helpful to give children a barometer of their fitness and encourage them to improve, I think thay there should be more PE in school. But I don't think that punishing kids for not being as good is the way to foster a love of exercise or generally helpful.

My school did a set distance begining and end of each term and you had a card in your planner to record your own personal improvement in time over the year. There was no punishment for being last, it was about doing it for yourself and improving on your own terms - accepting that a 6ft tall teenager with legs up to my ribs was probably going to be faster than 5ft tall stumpy legged me - and accepting that that was fine!

Also, as a PP said - if you make 30 people run a distance, logic dictates that even if they're all Olympic athletes ... someone is going to come last!

At the risk of upsetting some perfectly kind and reasonable games/pe teachers, there does seem to be a cruel streak a mile wide in many some of them. My ds was put off participating in sports groups (he shortly afterwards dropped out of his football team and lost a lot of self-confidence) after his year 8 games report (within the last 5 years) offered up the gem 'unfortunately X has not been blessed with a huge amount of physical prowess'. This was about a boy who loves sport, was moderately good at some sports, always tried his best but was never going to be a sprinter or in the 'A' teams for anything. Really think it dented his self-esteem, as will anything that makes a child feel they are bad at something. PE departments need to move out of the time-warp they seem to be stuck in. What about inclusivity and positive reinforcement? You're actually making sure that the people who could really benefit from increased fitness and higher levels of 'physical prowess' are going to be the least likely to keep up any kind of physical activity because they're made to feel rubbish at it..

@Veuvelily

No, I didn’t see the run It’s not a one off, he says he has to do it every time

Is he actually having to run an extra lap or is he having to run the set amount of laps? At school we had to run 3 laps and I would often finish before the teacher and one girl used to complain I’d only run 2 laps because she’d only run(walked) 2 in the time I’d done 3. She was told to do the ‘extra’ lap although it wasn’t extra just what we’d been asked to do.

Maybe check what is happening and if he is being asked to run an extra lap, challenge that. Another possibility is that he isn’t running at all and so he’s been asked to actually run that extra lap.

@swg1

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".

Yes exactly. If you had no idea how to do a maths sheet and do it all wrong, a good teacher would give you something much easier, something you already understood a bit of, and explain it and give you a chance to have a success. Then you would do something harder, and harder, working up to the original sheet. By the time you got to it you would have a good handle on things.

To get fitter you need to gradually increase your exercise load over weeks or months. Trying to do too much too fast is counter-productive and damages your body. Making the poor kid go around again when they have already spent their energy trying to keep up with the others achieves absolutely nothing except setting them up for injury and failure.

@Hellocatshome

Im going to be unpopular but in for a penny in for a pound. All of those saying it's like something from the 70s, can I just point out there were a lot less unfit/overweight kids in the 70s.

As someone who was at school in the 70s, there were plenty who struggled on the (rare) occasions they made us run round the field. Most could walk or ride a bike to school - normal means of transport - but we certainly weren't all 'running fit', even if fewer of us were overweight and very few obese.

I got shamed as lazy for not being able to jump a hurdle. I was short - if there had been a hurdle scaled to my size I'd have happily jumped it all lesson and then maybe been able to gradually edge up but there was no way I could get my little legs over the damn thing on day one so my body had the sense to balk at it.

@Veuvelily

He’s always come last in running He enjoys football, rugby, pe and always comes out hot and sweaty. I was sports captain but could never run long distance He says he gets a stitch and can actually taste blood in his mouth. He hates it. He is overweight, he is very self conscious But he has an exercise bike and punching bag that he spends an hour a night on. He’s 13, constantly hungry and 5ft 9

Is it the football/rugby teacher who makes him run again, or is it a different person?

The only good reason I can think of, is that he is actually school team potential. And the teacher is trying to up his game where it is weak - ie it is only his running speed that is holding him back. He's a big lad and might be very handy representing the school for rugby.

@Veuvelily

Wrt diets- I’m treading very carefully here. Puberty, growth spurts, special needs, rock bottom self esteem, self consciousness. He eats plenty of fruit and vegetables and is exercising off his own bat. He doesn’t respond well to being told how to do things, so It’s not easy to impose an exercise regime.

Well done. Its too easy for people to think it's as simple as "eat less". I think him doing his own exercise every day is brilliant!

This has given me a horrible flashback to me as a child.

I was 'the fat kid'. We were made to run round the perimeter of the field and everyone else would be watching me, struggling, with a stitch in my side, scarlet in the face, half in tears. The teacher would be standing there enjoying the spectacle too.

PE was on a Thursday and every Thursday morning I would wake up early and literally weep in dread.

I'm a grown adult and this still makes me go cold in horror at the memory.

Awful.

I was always the slowest at running. I hated PE. It didn’t play to any of my strengths and put me off exercise for years.

But I could swim like a fish. And that’s still my favourite exercise.

I was also terrible at maths. I would never have been made to publicly redo my work in front of the whole class. There’s no way he should have been made to run another lap.

Anyway, someone has to come last in a race/run? It was usually me, but at least I wasn’t further embarrassed.

This is why people don't exercise as adults - because they associate it with shame and humiliation rather than enjoyment and personal achievement. It's monstrous.

This is so sad. I was overweight at school, probably not the biggest but I definitely struggled. I hated Games/cross country. I was at school in the early 2000s, I would have thought it would have came on more by then. If we had been able to do things like dancing and spin class and things I would have done better. Rather than just having all the sporty people watch me struggle.

For example the beep test. Horrendous thing. I personally would speak to the school not going in all guns blazing but definitely bringing it to their attention and basically asking how on earth is punishing someone with running going to help them enjoy exercise more.

I'd hoped that PE had changed since I was at school.

It has, to a large extent, at many - as PP have said, children working against their own times for running etc.
This makes the sort of thing the OP describes all the less excusable.

If a maths teacher gives extra help to someone who’s struggling then hopefully this would be done discreetly, not oh dear, Johnny, you’ve got the lowest score in the class again, You’ll have to do the test again.

And it would probably be about trying to get them to improve their maths for themselves, GCSE Maths is important for so many jobs, not about competing with others in the class. Some people just don’t have the physique to be fast at running but they can exercise in other ways, they might be better at other sports. You wouldn’t expect a jockey to be good at basketball or a gymnast to do shot put.

I was a strong competitive swimmer and a black belt in karate but a rubbish runner so I don't think running is always a sign of fitness.

OP - I would talk to the school. my DS has ADHD and dyspraxia and such low self esteem because everything he does requires so much more effort than most other DC.

He also has compulsive eating linked to his ADHD which we struggle with everyday. He's not overweight (87th centile for BMI) but only cos I keep a very close eye on what he eats and we emphasize health not weight at home.

There is no other POV. This needs taking up with the school urgently. I can’t believe anyone would think it’s ok. There is no way humiliation can ever lead to a healthier child.

@tattleandbagels

I am middle-aged mother so hardly a fitness icon to say the least.. 2 or 3 laps around a field is hardly a big deal is it?

I would be very concerned if my young teen was too unfit and "exhausted" for running an extra-lap that the rest of his class managed.

How can they be so unfit so young?

It's not just about fitness, it's about natural ability and technique too.

Our two young grandsons are equally fit, but one is a natural athlete and the other is his polar opposite. One runs like a runner, the other runs with a complete lack of coordination. For one child the extra lap might be ok, but the other would find it a dreadful and humiliating experience. In both cases it's bullying.

In my experience school PE rarely has the time or inclination to teach each child about techniques in that particular sport. What's the point in getting them to do something badly, again and again?

If you can't inspire and encourage youngsters in any other way than punishing the non physical child then you have no place teaching them. As a humiliated child over 40 years ago I feel really strongly about this.

DS had an awful teacher who pulled this shit at primary school. DS has a multitude of medical conditions, but specifically hyper mobility. He is as thin as a rake but not able to run properly, and has difficulty with most sports. His primary teacher used to make him do extra which caused him pain. Arsehole.

Even recommended exercise was advised with caution from our physio. I got her to deal with this teacher in the end.

Ironically it improved when DS went to high school as they grouped them in ability groups and got them to exercise against their own personal targets. DS did gentle weight training and slowly improved some of his core muscles. He also stopped hating pe. There are ways to improve physical fitness which don't involve destroying self esteem. This teacher is out of order and personally I would be complaining especially with all the other issues your DS is facing right now.

It's a sad world when asking kids to exercise is called a punishment or an humiliation. Explains a lot, but still depressing.