To think that the tories should leave school sport well alone

[ReallyTired]

The UK has more medals that it has ever had the olympics for a long time. Surely the UK's PE teachers must have done something right. I feel that tories should not be micro managing how schools teach PE.

The majority of medals were won by people who attended state schools.
I also suspect that many of the olympicans who attended private schools had sports scholarships and prehaps thats why private schools are over represented.

www.guardian.co.uk/sport/datablog/2012/aug/06/team-gb-medal-winners-background#school

Our teachers do a good job and primary school sport should not be messed about with. I would rather the governant provided more funding for after school clubs than force primaries to do competitive sport.

IMO they need to stop banging on about compulsory sport and discuss it in terms of compulsory exercise and work towards providing that in an affordable format for all.

And stopping the closing down of all our council run swimming baths would be a good start.

How exactly do private schools fit it in? Could we have a sample timetable? My DCs (secondary) start school at 8.30 and finish at 3.30,knock off an hour for lunch and break, 6 hours left.
Take off 2 hours for sport,4 hours for everything else. How does that work??

Are we saying private schools manage it with a longer school day,and Saturday school? if so how will the state system fund that? And of course private schools have longer holidays,so that will affect the average hours of sport per day over an entire year. (if I didn't have to go to work I might waste a few minutes seeing if that actually makes a significant difference!)

What DrCoconut said.

I love sport. The Olympics have been heavenly. But I hated every single minute of PE I ever did. It taught me to hate my body, and hate taking part in sport and crucially, exercise.

It wasn't until my late 20s when I realised that I enjoyed jogging and swimming, and that the only competition was with myself to get better, that I really started exercising again.

If my PE lessons had been more about individual fitness and enjoyment and less about laughing at the asthmatic wheezers, then maybe this would have been different.

The thing that really bothers me in all this though is the deification of sport above all. There are plenty of things which are important to life and build confidence: music, art, drama etc. Our creative industries are one of our greatest exports, but no one seems to be arguing for a studio in every school and two hours of compulsory creativity or culture.

These are things parents are expected to encourage in children, should they want to. Why should hockey/netball/competitive running be any different.

pride my DC have always done daily sport and yes, the school day is longer.
8.15 - 4.30pm from year 4.
Plus lots of matches and fixtures on Saturdays.
Plus training sessions after school and during school holidays for some sports.

It is a huge commitment and one the school and the parents buy into, both by paying fees but also by supporting the concept IYSWIM.

I'm not convinced the state system has the resources or the will to replicate it.

Let's face it, sport in most state primary schools is rubbish. Too little of it and not enough recognised sports.

Dd1 has just finished Year 6. As part of their fun, winding down weeks at the end of the year they played tennis. She told me this was the FIRST time they had played tennis at school in 7 years. They've got the courts right on the playground, how hard can it be to teach them tennis?? Who knows, one kid could be the next Andy Murray whose parents don't have the time or money to take him to lessons.

I completely support the tory proposal.

PrideOfChanur

^How exactly do private schools fit it in? Could we have a sample timetable? My DCs (secondary) start school at 8.30 and finish at 3.30,knock off an hour for lunch and break, 6 hours left.
Take off 2 hours for sport,4 hours for everything else. How does that work??^

Well my experience of prep school is 30 years old, but my day went roughly like this:
Assembly 8:30, lessons start 9:10 through until 3pm with a 20 minute break in the morning and an hour at lunchtime. Games from 3 until 4. 4:10 until 5pm was prep (homework). So roughly an hour (45 minutes once you've got kids in and out) of games per day. Saturday morning school, of course - and Saturday pm was the matches for the school teams.

The main difference seems to be the afternoon. Private schools finish later, and I'd like to see state schools adopt the same policy (of homework until 5pm). There are a couple of advantages to this. Firstly, it would give both parents the chance to work almost full time if they chose to. Second, no 'homework', it's all done in school so everyone get the same conditions and there aren't any distractions.

I don't think that the Saturday morning (4 lessons) makes a huge amount of difference - a state school could fit 2 of those lessons in twice a week in the afternoon, and that would still give them 3 games sessions per week in the afternoon.

I think a lot depends on facilities, and this is why sports provision in (many) private schools outclasses that in state schools: if you have 5 pitches, you can have 110 children playing hockey at one time, whereas if you have 1 pitch, you can only have 22 children playing at one time.

Because of this, each individual school's PE/games/exercise timetable has to be tailored to what it can accommodate regarding facilities, time and teaching expertise.

Yes, prep schools finish later. After school clubs allow state schools children time to play more sports. In fact some state schools already do this.

Surely the best way for state schools to replicate sucess is to have more after school clubs with better funding. My son's state primary has loads of after school clubs and he does karate twice a week at school. The children can do gymnastics, netball, judo, football, multi sports, tennis. However my son is at quite a large state primary and I imagine it would be hard for smaller primaries to have such a range of clubs.

However there is a world of difference between a sports club for those who WANT to be there and complusory hockey. Every child in my son's karate club is interested and moviated. Unlike school PE lessons there are no discipline problems.
The children make REAL progress. However funding for this club has been cut and the cost is rising from £2.50 to £5 a session. It is a real blow for the fitness of working class children.

I fear that my son's karate club will fold.