To think allowing children to pick teams has no place in a modern school

[ReallyTired]

Ie. the set up when sadistic games teacher picks two favourites as team captains and then the team captains pick children for their team. The last three are the fat kid, the kid with smelly breath and the kid with hearing aids.

Surely its possible to have a hockey lesson in a primary school with without the painful experience of being last to be picked. I feel that a teacher could have games groups just like they have groups for maths and english. There could be two top groups, two middle groups and two bottom groups. Each group of children would be challenged competition wise and there would be no popularity contest.

My son's teacher has been using this approach and I have made a formal complaint to the head teacher. My son was the second last to be picked as he is very uncoorindated. (Ds has had child phyio in the past) He felt sorry for the kid with bad breathe that no one wanted on their team.

My son's school will not give out any prizes on sports days to the winners for fear of hurting the feelings of children who don't get prize. It is not logical that they don't chose to spare the feelings of the rejectee child who is put off sport for life.

I managed sucessfully to get change by stating how my son felt. I didn't harp back to my school days, but stayed in a present.

I said that my son found the system of picking teams stressful and humilating. My son wasn't even the last picked, but in the last three.

I told them that I felt that having team captains discouraged children with special needs or social issues from partisipating in sport. I feel that its not in the spirt of "Every child matters" to treat children like this.

EvilTwins do you work at a private school? I assume that you don't have to consider things like inclusion in your lesson plans.

Thankfully my son's school listens inspite of the fact I am not a teacher.

at the thought that I teach in a private school. I did say, if you read my first post on this thread, that I use a variety of ways of grouping students. That is good practice in school, and IME is also common practice in school. I'm not saying I'm a teacher and therefore all teachers are like me, I'm saying that I'm a teacher and therefore I understand the theory behind grouping students- there's more to it that most people are aware. As a parent, I wouldn't necessarily be aware of this.

I work with three PE teachers. Two are luffley.

One was undoubtedly a bully at school. She was put in charge of a Whole School Initiative that lots of other people had neatly sidestepped being made responsible for because it was obviously Total Bollocks.

She spends much of her time now attempting to bully her colleagues who have failed to meet deadlines for their bit of the Total Bollocks Initiative .

When people fail to be bullied into rushing off to do her bidding, she has spectacular screaming public tantrums in the staffroom before running off to the Head's office in tears.

Karma's a bitch....

I think OP is definitely not BU. I was the clumsy, wheezy kid picked last - I never gave much of a shit, but it's certainly given me a lasting antipathy to sport resulting in me being a fat, wheezy adult.

I usually agree with most things you say eviltwins but I can't see that getting children to pick teams in PE is anything but a potential misery for most of them, and can't see why it would be considered the best thing to do at all.

I'm saddened and surprised that this still goes on when anyone with half a brain can imagine the obvious results and the potential for meanness and bullying.

Also my PE teachers were beastly, too, though I understand there's at least one nice one at dds' school.

Haven't read the whole thread, but a good way round it ,sometimes, is to let the children who are always left till last to pick the "team". That way they are in control.
However,usually, teams are picked by the teacher so that there is a mix of ability.

When I taught, picking large groups for activities was always done by a random number system, normally me pointing at people going "one, two, one, two". It saved time and arguments. I don't know why PE teachers can't do the same.

jam - i was thinking that earlier.
but I was a "picked last kid" - not necessarily because I was crap, but because I was hated. It would have been extremely hard for me to pick teams. not just because no one would want to be in my my team, or appear to want to be in my team, but because I would want to be fair to those who never get picked, but at the same time would want the best people on my team, because the humiliation of being bullied for weeks afterwards for losing because I'd chosen a crap team would have been unbearable.

Yes, for random group picking for PE in the class i work in currently the teacher gets the kids to run about a bit (warms them up, and gets them out of 'order', ie no longer near friends as much as pos) then quickly walks around taping heads saying 1, 2, 3, 4 or however many teams she wants them split into. All 1s in one team, all 2s in the next etc.

This always impresses the hell out of me as i hated the 'kids choose their team' system when i was at school.

My DDs have all passed through primary, one is still in secondary and some teachers still use the humiliating old method. Some of the teachers in 'my school' still use it too. And trust me - it's out of laziness in these cases. Not some wonderful, agonisingly well thought out 'method'. I know because i've been involved in the lesson planning.

Some teachers are good, some are great, some are average and some are shite and i feel for some of the kids in their class and i feel for their parents. This is my experience after 8 years working alongside them.

Oh dear. Everyone now has me down as an evil PE teacher. I'm not. I teach performing arts, which is another subject in which kids are put into groups most lesson. My original point was NOT that getting kids to pick teams in PE is always fine, it was that getting kids to pick is very probably not the ONLY way in which teams are sorted. I would be properly amazed if this happens every single lesson. As I have said in other posts, teachers are taught numerous ways to group students. I myself use pick your own, random groups, differentiated by target grade, deliberately mixed ability, enthusiastic kid to lead group, quiet kid to lead group etc etc etc- rarely do I use the same method two lessons running. IME, the vast majority of teachers are the same. At this early point in the academic year, I wouldn't think it worthy of a formal complaint. If it went on and on, and the teacher in question never deviated from this way of sorting groups in PE, then it would be worth bringing up, but with the teacher him/herself, or the HOD. Taking it straight to the head in the second week of term is way OTT IMHO.

I wouldn't take it to the head at this stage either, but to be honest I don't think it makes any difference whether the teacher uses it sometimes or all the time: it shouldnt happen at all.

I agree with Evil a variety of ways can and should be used. I have an extremely sporty child and one that was only ever allocated to teams and never chosen, but for whats its worth I would be happy for them to be in Evils class where a variety of methods were used to form groups.

That should have been Evil's class...

Eviltwins - (an aside - PE is not Games. PE is doing gymnastics etc and of course there is no need for setting.)

It is very easy to set for games - not only does it make it better for the children who may be representing the school to be playing together often, but it also means that the children in the lower groups get the chance to be "the best" at a sport. And, if they improve, they will move up the ranks. I have seen children go from 4th group to top group in rugby within 2 terms - so it is more than possible.

Children can be cruel without even meaning to be. They are not stupid - and are more than capable of recognising some children are better at sport and therefore could win awards for it. But there is no need for the humiliation of being the last child to be chosen for teams.

As a teacher, I fail to see how you can justify your comments. To me (without needing boasing about qualifications) your comments show your experience seems rather limited - whether in general school life or simply the amount of time you have been teaching.

YANBU - it's just completely unnecessary. It's bad enough that the kids feel rubbish once the game starts and they are doing badly in it, without them feeling terrible from the start.
At my school there is setting for PE which must help a little and I am sure they don't do teams like this.
I feel bad enough when I let the kids get into their own groups in my English lessons and there is someone left out. Since this is normally for drama though the more eccentric children (especially those with HFA) are normally much in demand.

Fait. Why do my comments suggest a lack of experience? Yours suggest a lack of comprehension.

1. I teach PERFORMING ARTS not PE. (and have been doing so for 15 years)
2. I am trying to make the point that there are a number of ways of organising groups and/or teams in lessons and that IME, the vast majority of teachers will use a variety of methods, depending on what they are aiming to achieve in that lesson.

How any of that suggests I am inexperienced I do not know.

PE and Games is in sets at my ds's school which is a sports academy (yr5-yr8) and then as far as I know in the high school he will be going to as well. Pretty sure they don't pick for grouse and I would have something to say if they did - really lazy teaching imo and you are right to say it has no place in a school.

ReallyTired

Am glad to read that your complaint was upheld.

I noticed at school that the same old people were chosen by the PE staff to make up a team; they were usually the more sporty able ones or their favourites. Picking the Asian girls last along with any girl who was wearing glasses, not sporty, clever, thin or part of their clique was commonly seen. PE staff never did a damn thing about it.

No, fait, it's quite usual for games and PE both to appear in the timetable as PE.

I've taught in 3 school, and have never come across an evil bully in the PE dept

How would you know unless you were being taught by them?

I moved around a lot as a child and went to lots of different schools and I am struggling to think of even one Games teacher that was even half human towards the kids

*forcing us to strip for showers and not letting us take a towel to the showers.

• Forcing us to use Tampax if we had our periods so we could go swimming and standing outside the toilet until we managed to.

• One boy was desperate for the toilet and shit himself and was still made to continue the games lesson - we were so shocked `i don't think anyone ever mentioned it again let alone teased him.

• On Games teacher who also taught maths used to lob the wooden board wiper at our heads.

All different schools and all different teachers.

Ds loves PE?Games and is good at it but even he says the teachers he has are harsh - they are sneered at if they wear joggers in the winter, they are expected to wear shorts even when there is snow on the ground.

Gosh, that was a bit of a rant

YANBU. Picking teams for anything - PE, drama, whatever - should never happen at school. It's horrible.

I was really good at PE and was often captain. I used to dread picking teams because I didn't want anyone to be left until last so I'd pick the completely unsporty types and end up with a terrible team!

On the other hand, I was one of a group of 5 friends and we all used to hate it when we had to choose partners for something because one of us was always left out. When you're a child/teenager that really matters.

Oh FFS. Will people pleeeease stop using their experience of PE in the bloody 70s and 80s as evidence of teaching methods NOW. Things have moved on. I remember copying stuff off the board for hours in Physics lessons. I fully understand that Science is not taught like that any more.

My point is that I don't think things have moved on that much wrt PE teachers at least. In fact not a lot has changed really since the 80's.

That's not my experience. For a start, teachers are subject to a great deal more scrutiny these days,