AIBU to think that PE is a complete waste of time for non sporty children

[onceamai]

Why is there an obsession with PE/Sport in schools. Great if children are sporty but why does it have to be compulsory. There are so many other ways to get exercise and throwing/catching balls is not the be all and end all. I hated it and it (together with a vile PE teacher who told me I was uselesss) made my school days a complete misery. Why does exercise have to involve netball, hockey, gym, grubby showers, etc., when it can involve dance, aerobics, walking, fresh air, etc.. I detested the humiliation of it all and can see no reason why it should be compulsory. I was also slim and fit and at fifty remain so (ish) without ever having participated in sports. Some of the gung ho girls I went to school with are now the fattest and unfittest you can imagine. It also seems to be taught by the roughest, nastiest, most bullyish types one can come across and I can't see what the benefits are for girls who are non sporty, don't like being teased and bullied, are feminine and don't like getting dirty.

Thinking about it I've had great PE teachers my whole time at various schools.

So maybe that is why I enjoyed PE despite not being great at a lot of things. I don't think it matters what sports you do - although a choice is nice - teachers that instill good sportsmanship and value effort are worth their weight in gold.

I remember ping pong being an option at about 15. The group of people that choose to do it mostly weren't sporty (as you'd expect!) and we had great fun making up our own rules with the teacher in lessons, running round the tables or using two tables with a valley of death in the middle. It was good plain fun, great for hand eye and exercise.

I've read through this thread but can't see any mention of 'sportsmanship', 'fair competition' and learning to work with your team mates. It doesn't matter what the actual activity is, those are the lessons that every child has to learn or be miserable.

Some parents don't move much themselves so how are they going to instil the need for exercise in their chidren? There's plenty of time for children to be sedentary as well as active.

I wasn't in school that long ago but I'm sure there was the parental hovvering that there seems to be nowadays and the constant questioning of what DCs are learning and whether it's good enough or the right thing. Surely the parents job is to hone in on whatever aptitude a chid has and encourage and develop it, not try to micro-manage the school.

I think yabu.

I never enjoyed PE at school because the emphasis was always on competitive team games which I don't much like. Only because at school that's a recipe for being yelled at and not being picked for teams etc. That and the enforced communal showering afterwards put the nail in the coffin on pe at school for me. All ghastly

From school I went through most of my life blanking exercise because I thought I disliked it. It wasn't until my 40's I discovered running - on my own with a bit of music plugged in - that I realised do like it.

Btw I'm all for a bit of competition in sport if that's your thing - absolutely - but for others there need to be opportunites to do excercise just for personal pleasure ie non competetive swimming, running etc. You've just got to be given the chance to find the thing you enjoy.

... and LaWeasel beats me to it whilst I'm typing...

That's the key, LaWeasel: the teaching. Not making the less able children feel like failures, and not encouraging the more able children to lord it over the less able ones.

Two huge differences that I recall about my PE lessons - positive differences - were when my brother taught me some very basic ball skills (you'd have thought that by the age of 12 or 13 a teacher would have taught them to me!) and when our regular PE teacher handed tennis over to a supply teacher for a term. Oh my, the difference! All down to the fact that our regular teacher sorted us by ability and had us play with players of the same ability, whereas the supply teacher had us play for part of every lesson with players of the 'opposite ability.

LWIW, I think your point about sportsmanship is a really good one.

The reason people discuss what goes on in schools is partly to do with their being a national curriculum set by the Government. So that makes it more likely people will debate the curriculum as they have more of an idea of what is being taught in schools.

There are lots of reasons why parents are concerned about what goes on in schools. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the parent to make sure that the child receives an appropriate education, and we send our children to school to receive some of that education. We do the rest ourselves, and in order to do that we need to know what is being taught by the school. If the school is teaching something poorly, or not teaching something at all, we can address that at home by adding to what we teach.

But there has in the last ten years been a huge move towards schools taking on the responsibilities that were traditionally the role of parents, and parents having to take on the responsibilities that used to be those of the school. That has created a lot of confusion and so parents question more so that they can gain understanding.

Teachers are the experts when it comes to teaching, but educating a child requires both the parent and the teacher to make a contribution.

I loved gymnastics and swimming at primary school (private prep) because we had specialist teachers to teach us both sports. All the other sports, with non-specialist teachers, were dreadful.

And that's my feeling about PE: I want my children to learn sports from specialists in each sport. DD has had ski-ing lessons with a ski instructor, swimming lessons with a swimming instructor, tennis lessons with a tennis instructor, gymnastics lessons with a gymnastics instructor and dance lessons with a dance teacher.

I dunno, maybe they shouldn't do sciences either, on the basis that I wasn't very good at those subjects

I didn't like the way PE was taught at school - secondary school as I am quite sporty but prefer things like dance and aerobics (and running now, though I hated it then) to team games and athletics, and it sometimes felt like the PE teachers were just trying to torture you and put you off exercise for life. Glad to see things have changed!

lol at numberfour - the names of those evil women are scarred into your brain tissue forever

I agree with you prettycandles - they need to teach the skills and things start looking very different. I hated it when they put you into 2 teams, handed you equipment you'd never seen before and told you it was baseball and you were up to bat. I mean wtf? How are you supposed to know what to do?

As a result I sent my dd to sports clubs where they teach the littlies from scratch basic skills - so she learnt basketball, hockey, light athletics (running, jumping, throwing), swimming and softball, tennis. She liked some, dropped others but has some idea what to do with a ball, stick, racquet, her own arms and legs.

I also think they could make pe more palatable immediately if the whole picking teams thing were scrapped. Why can't the pe teacher just put them in teams?

We had some vile teachers for pe in secondary. I remember one in particular- Scottish, rugged and musuclar, mad. Came to us from the army: "nu slarking orf gerrls". We hated him. We hadto crawl through the dirt (wtf?), endless country running, push ups and so on. It was such a drag. What it taught me was to be sly, very sly and find many many ways of getting out of it.

It's important to encourage children to exercise into their lives for long term health in their middle and old age. The people i know who don't excersise seem to think they are fit but are far from it - even if they are slim. My parents are a fine example of this.

I agree it's important for kids to try out lots of different forms of excersise in order to find something they might like - which is why they do dance etc in school these days. It helps kids with co-ordination, team work etc.

I wasn't very good at PE myself but really enjoyed it. Great teachers and great fun.

Did anyone like, really like hurdles and high-jump? For some reason those got on my nerves most. Or vaulting over that horse thing in the gym? Sprint I loved, also discuss and shot-put ok but not the fiddly stuff.

ha discuss.
I meant discus obviuosly but hanging about having a natter was maybe the best part of pe come to think of it

I HATED PE at school, with a deep and abiding passion, and thinking on it now, it was pretty much down to rubbish teaching.
In my first school, it consisted of playing cricket for an hour a week because the teacher loved cricket and couldn't think of anything more interesting for us to do. In summer we'd do swimming, which was good at primary school level, and we were taught things properly.

At my second school, it was hideous. It was organised by this insane woman. In winter, it consisted of running around and around the school at midday, in South Africa (unsurprisingly the teacher later developed skin cancer) or playing netball. In summer it was swimming, and it was awful wearing that swimming costume in front of the boys and swimming laps. Fortunately those lessons were organised by a man, so I "was on my period" about 3 weeks out of 4 so didn't have to do it .

I was a pretty active child - as a teen I was doing around 5/6 hours of ballet training a week, so honestly didn't see how running around a school for an hour a week helped anything.

I think there is 'activity' and there is 'sport'

I always really liked swimming as soon as I learnt (about 8/9), and soon after took up badminton. I played for between 1 and 3 hours every Saturday for about 5 years. From a very young age my mum took me to dancing classes (she had loved them when young but i had the grace of a baby elephant!)At primary school i enjoyed playing football and other weird games we invented. And swingball, skipping in the garden etc This to me was 'activity'.

however at seconday school it was 'Sport' (definitely capitalised!) - and i hated it! It was the competitiveness that got to me. I simply cannot be bothered to be competitive! I would much prefer something to be just for fun. The school ahd a swimming pool, but i was hardly able to use more than the top 3rd of it, as all the 'team swimmers' (ie the ones who could dive in) would power up and down and be really nasty if you got in their way. Team games were a nightmare - always picked last (due to lack of friends and being the 'fat one - more the first than the last), not knowing the rules or being able to run fast. It was like ritual humiliation and the teachers certainly didn't help. Athletics in the summer had aout 6 of us jockeying for last place in the line.

I would have much prefered to able to choose individual pe - gym equipment or something similar. Ithink this would promote 'activity' - which is really what we need

YABU There has to be something for the thick kids to be good at!

oh my.

That's going to get you torn a new one.

YANBU

My experience was pretty similar to that of the OP, and I was so disappointed that my dds (who went to different schools) found that PE was still very similar - competitive team sports, the whole humiliating process of picking teams, sitting out in public view at the edge of the swimming pool when you had your period (might as well have had a notice round your neck!)...

dd1 was like me, wore glasses, and was unco-ordinated when it came to throwing and catching. Now she's an ultra-fit gym-bunny, but at school she hated PE. Is there something about the self-selection of PE teachers? If most of them were 'sporty' at school, liked team games and were good at them (therefore inclined to take up a career as a PE teacher), then they might not understand the hell that it is for other people.

However I did develop a keener interest in PE when the school appointed a GOD with blonde curls and a yellow Ford Capri when I was in 6th year

YABU
My DD is 'unsporty' but even though she's not really good at team games still enjoys them. The indoors PE often is dance, which the teacher makes really fun.

Its not a waste of time if its done well.

Havnt read all of this thread but I think its important for children to learn to play a sport and keep fit and agile.
Its good for heart and lungs and physical co ordination and development.
Its vital they learn that keeping fit is the healthy life style especially as we have a real problem in the UK with over weight children. (and Adults)
I dont think it matters if you are sporty or not...
P.E/sport at school is very essential.

I hated PE at school and this was completely down to the shit teachers. How was it that every single one of them was fat??? I had to play hockey, mid winter, in the Highlands of Scotland wearing a tiny gym skirt whilst some fat oaf in a duffle coat barked orders at me. How could anyone enjoy that?

I honestly could not give a toss who won at things like indoor volley ball (wow, what fun diving for a ball onto a hard surface), hockey on a badly maintained sports field, or rounders.

If PE is still dire when my boys go to high school I will just send them in with a note every week.

I do now, though, enjoy going to the gym or having a jog a couple of times a week. But it took me several years for my aversion to sport, that my PE teacher bestowed on me, to fade away.

There is no excuse for bad teaching. I think that PE at school like LWIW is important for teamwork, learning to lose and having a chance to run round. I say this having a very sporty DD and a non sporty DS. I would still expect my DS to take part. Certainly in the first 3/4 years of senior school I think DC should participate in team sports on rotation as it gives them a chance to try a variety of sports that otherwise they wouldn't get to do.
I am not suggesting in any way that the OP does this but I think as parents we have to be careful not to pass our ideas subconsciously onto our children. eg my DD had a friend who never remembered her PE kit, her Mother never viewed it as important to help her remember and thus didn't enforce it. So the girl got the idea PE wasn't important.. and that it OK to not moan about it.

Oh, and the whole team picking thing? What was that about? I can't remember in English or maths being given any choice as to who to do a project with.

I do think that shit PE teachers over the last 4 decades have a lot to do with the obesity crisis now.

YANBU. It's not so much sport itself but the way it is taught (or not taught). When my son started playing football when he was in infants school, he was straight away side-lined as not being any good. Instead of teaching him the skills he needed to get better, the teacher concentrated on the better players. Now imagine how unacceptable that would be if that happened with Reading when a child started school!
One of our local high schools is actually putting kids in ability groups for PE now. It works much better as all the really sporty kids are in together. Some of the less sporty kids are actually finding they enjoy some sports now the are not subjected to abuse from the more able sporty kids.

I could never see why my PE teacher, who drove her car to the gym (a few hundred yards down the road) to spend her time in a smelly room with equipment, was a healthier and more moral person than myself who walked everywhere and preferred to spend my time tracking around the woods.

I too hated PE at school but the absolute worst experience ever was when they did introduce dance.

In the 5th year the teachers had this bright idea that we would have a few mixed PE lessons and they would teach us "proper" dancing. A male and a female PE teacher would demonstrate the moves and then, horror of horrors, the boys were instructed to cross the room, choose a girl and ask her to dance.

Of course the popular girls got asked immediately and everyone else had the humiliation of sitting there waiting until some boy decided she was the best of a bad job and grudgingly ask her.

I still remember the male, sterotypical bullying PE teacher marching this rather grubby boy with warts across the room with his arm up hgis back and forcing him to ask me if he could have the pleasure of this dance. And of course I wasn't allowed to refuse.

Eugh!