PE - not inclusive

[DIYVan]

I'm after some advice please. Dd is in year 6 and loves running, basket ball, netball, swimming, ice skating and hockey.

She participates actively during PE lessons but the boys she is teamed up with never pass the ball to her or to any of the other girls except one or two who seem to be somewhat popular with the boys.

Essentially she is alert, focused and ready but doesn't get included in the game as the ball gets passed form boy to boy. The boys also say things like 'girls are no good at PE' or 'girls always chat and don't play'. This really frustrates dd and I worry that by the end of year 6 she will be put off team sports.

I've spoken to school but nothing has changed. Is there anything dd can do so the boys are more likely to pass her the ball? Shout 'over here' when she is ready for example or anything else? It's such a shame. How can I best advise her?

Spot on @xsquared

@SnowAndFrostOutside - we are talking about a primary school aged pe lesson where everyone does indeed take part. There's a time and a place for competitive matches, and plenty of them, this isn't it. It would be nice to teach kids, lets face it, some boys, that there are plenty of times they play to win, and other times where they be nice. Balance.

Younger DD (y5) came home buzzing on Tuesday because they played Ultimate Frisbee instead of football in PE so the class wasn't dominated by the boys.
(She plays rugby out if school like a PP... none of the boys at school believed her until she brought in her awards and the teacher showed a womans rugby game during a wet break)

Unfortunately elder DD, at Secondary, says the same thing happens in her PE lessons which despite being single sex, its the bigger girls being dismissive of the smaller ones.

Is there an after school sports club that many of the boys play in? We encouraged our son to join the local football club so he would have confidence and some skills in place to play proactively when the school started to do more formal sports. Some girls play in the football club, they are good players and are selected for the teams.

At that age, in a non-competitive setting (lessons), it sounds poorly organised by the PE teacher. The PE teacher could set practice rules that a certain number of passes are made to the girls/all members of the team have to have had their hands on the ball. The school also needs to crack down on what is being said, as it is going to put some of the girls off sport.

Dd1 ( 16 now so a few years ago) found this in pe too. It wasn't a lack.of talent/ability as her and several others were often selected for sporting events the school participated in. However the boys just ignored the girls amd the solution seemed to just be to allow the girls to just go off somewhere else and set up their own game.of cricket or something.

If your daughter is keen on the sport, but needs confidence in it, is there an intensive holiday camp/local sessions over the Easter break?

This is exactly what put me off sport for life tbh.

And the solution shouldn't be "find external providers"

It's a compulsory subject. It should be inclusive.

It’s hugely embedded behaviour, often reinforced by parents and some teachers. There are even studies that show how common this is, if you’d like some evidence to give to school.

www.researchgate.net/publication/248975381_'Why_can't_girls_play_football'_Gender_dynamics_and_the_playground

In the end, my dd left her ‘mixed’ team, joined a girls team, built her confidence back up and was then able to force herself into the playground football games by being good, very persistent (it took over a year even with teachers theoretically on side) and taking a hell of a lot of hard knocks and unfairness (eg ‘team’ of her against all the boys). It shouldn’t be that hard.

She’s now at an all girls secondary, where this isn’t an issue.

This is a very good point on a compulsory subject that therefore should be inclusive. I cannot imagine if it was a certain group using other school equipment and excluding others. There is another active thread talking about school teams and so many of the replies talk about favouritism and essentially a lack of professionalism among some PE teachers.