Very strange PE lesson today

[deliataughtme]

Just posted this in secondary ed but posting here too because there is more traffice.

DD, Yr 9, came home from school fuming.

They had PE today. Two groups so two teachers. They did bleep tests (whatever they are) but which I understand to be mindless running up and down and then the girls take their pulses. At this point the girls were not told they couldn't talk and though they had been put at ease after the running and the two teachers left the gym because there was talking.

They were gone for 20 minutes and then came back and screamed at the girls for their rudeness, the fact that they might as well not be there, no-one noticed they had gone, etc.. The girls were also told they would do really badly at GCSE because of their attitude. The girls were then made to spend 20 minutes running around outside in the freezing cold - some did not have full kit and had to do so in tshirts/shorts in minus temperatures.

Now, I appreciate I have one side of this but there must have been 40 odd girls, some of whom have significant behaviour problems, some of whom have SEN. They were left unattended for 20 minutes. Is that actually acceptable from a safeguarding point of view? I don't think it is. I don't think screaming at girls is acceptable either.

My dd and one of her friends, another mum has been on the phone, think the teachers were out of order and should at the very least have given instructions about whether the girls could talk when taking pulses, etc., should not have left the girls unattended and should not have come back screaming. DD and the friend are very reliable to give accurate recollections of the facts.

All sounds very strange and unsatisfactory. Also, doesn't sound like much of a team spirited PE lesson either.

Any PE teachers, SMT members or teachers generally on here for a view?

[JamieandtheMagicTorch]

IME there's no correlation between a bad attitude to shouty PE teachers and a bad attitude to school

[Sirzy]

Oh so now they used a stop watch to get an accurate time!

Everyone is known to exaggerate, I don't know why you find that so hard to accept. You have one side of the story, before getting irate it is always worth getting both sides.. The truth will fall somewhere in the middle.

[deliataughtme]

I don't believe I said my dd was talking. She wasn't. There was however some talking and my dd felt that was OK because she felt the girls had been put at ease. She's very compliant.

[Flojobunny]

We did bleep tests, despite hating running I quite enjoyed the bleep tests, they were always good fun.
We had to do PE outside in winter. Sometimes it was cold if we were doing hockey and the ball was down the other end too much and we were just stood round but running would warm them up no problems. It's the poor teachers I feel sorry for who have to stand round in it!
Our PE teachers used to yell a lot but that had something to do with always being outside or in a big hall, its the only way to be heard.

[DonderandBlitzen]

Did the girls set the timer the minute the teachers left the room to time how long they would be gone then?

[WilsonFrickett]

Surely all teachers say 'if you don't do X you will fail Y'. Isn't that a default piece of teacher-speak? I certainly remember being told 'if you cheat at cross country you won't get a job in a bank.' I did. And I did.

But anyway. Your objection to bleep tests because you didn't do them in school is very funny. The curriculum does change every now and then...

[TwelveLeggedWalk]

My hunch would be that the teachers maybe had some other issues going on and were trying to deal with an unrelated situation, left the kids to it thinking they were occupied, then flared up when they realised that they weren't and that they were in the wrong.

Bleep tests sound fine though. Running around in not many clothes kind of Dickensian, but fundamentally fine. I'd actually have more issue with the 'exercise as punishment' bit - not very Olympic legacy is it?

[DonderandBlitzen]

I believe that your dd is compliant and truthful. No reason to disbelieve that. I'm just not sure that the teachers did anything wrong really.

[JustasmallGless]

Yabu in relation to condemnation of bleep tests, messing around by the class and subsequent appropriate punishment..

Why do you think running outside in PE is unacceptable?

If they were left for 20 mins then this is the issue

[ChippingInNeedsSleepAndCoffee]

I wouldn't be sending my DD to a school where I felt she was unsafe without a teacher present (what does she do at break times?).

At their age we were constantly left to get on with the work that had been set. Of course there was a lot of chattering and a bit of messing around but no blood and no broken bones - we all lived and did well in exams. I'm concerned that the majority of parents & teachers here think 13 year olds need constant supervision at school.

If I'd been told, by a PE teacher, that I'd fail my GCSEs I'd have rolled my eyes, they were either 'nice' or 'fucking awful' but they were never 'proper' teachers (IMO) so their comments on exams would have meant sod all.

Running around for 20 mins in shorts & a t-shirt will not hurt them. Not great in 'indoor' footwear, but as a one off, not the end of the world either.

If my DD had told me all this I would have said something like 'That all sounds a bit odd, never mind, they're PE teachers - now how did maths/english/whatever go'.

[mackerella]

You had a bar and a pool table in your school, Catgirl?

[catgirl1976]

Sadly not :)

We used to go to a local sports centre for squash lessons

They were happy days :)

[AngelWreakinHavoc]

My ds does football/rugby outdoors in all weather as did I when I was at school.
He also goes outside and washes my cars and van in this weather (unsupervised for more than 20 mins)
YABVU and pfb by the sounds of it.

I was driving home today and seen at least 6 runners out in shorts (I live next to a raf base) , they didnt have have a teacher telling them to run as punishment and certainly didnt look cold.

No wonder all the kids nowadays feel/act so entitled it is the mothers who is making them that way!

[marriedinwhite]

Why are you all giving the OP such a hard time. It sounds like a badly managed lesson without a plan that went wrong. Two teachers then baled out - which, if something serious had happened in their absence, would have been a disciplinary matter where I work, behaviour spiralled after they left and they came back and dealt with it wholly inappropriately. If girls were talking they should have stayed and dealt with the girls who were talking - not disappeared only to come back and lay into the whole group and punish the whole group.

Totally unacceptable in my opinion. And if one of the girls had started an asthma attack for example and ended up in hospital, or worse, as a result of exertion on a cold day and the teachers had left under 18's unsupervised, even if it wasn't as long as 20 minutes, then I wouldn't have wanted to file that little report to the H&S Executive or to have answered to the LA and governing body.

Can't vouch for the validity of bleep tests, and of course I don't know how much the girls were mucking about when the teachers left but if they were mucking about the teachers should have stayed and should have dealt with it as trained professionals.

Why is it always assumed that one child is embellishing the truth? If the teachers left the group unattended it was unacceptable and unprofessional and represents the actions of teachers who probably don't have the basic skills to manage behaviour in the first place.

[KhallDrogo]

exactly angel rugby is only played in the winter...and they come off the pitch sweating...the girls would not have been cold, running outside for 10 minutes or so

The 20 minutes left alone, has been exaggerated

the teachers were probably spying on the girls during that time anyway

concentrate on teaching your dd not to talk and mess around in class

dont undermine the teachers authority

its all a bit of a non issue

[LadyBeagleEyes]

I read age nine, and wondered what she was doing in secondary school
I wish posters would give ages rather than the year their dcs are in, as it differs in Scotland, Ireland and for anybody who doesn't actually live in England.
Sorry, personal bugbear, carry on folks.

[mynewpassion]

Instead of your daughter being aggrieved at the teachers, maybe she should be aggrieved at her classmates. If they weren't messing about and just doing the lesson, they wouldn't have been punished and other students like your compliant daughter would be able to learn something.

[BrittaPerry]

Ooh, I hated bleep tests even more than cross country. Just another excuse for the rest of the class to laugh at the weird one (ie me)

But then I hated all PE.

Turns out I actually quite like sport, I just didn't like the attitude problem of the PE teachers. Although I turned that t my advantage when I discovered that thy thought it was a punishment to sit and read a book instead of playing netball.

But that is by the by. You are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place here, but I would lean towards doing nothing (except finding a way to skive your daughter off PE and sending her to do a fun exercise of her own choice after school. I suggest music lessons in school time and dance out of school, but that is my advice to anyone with a teenager th s anything less than sporty)

[perceptionreality]

Sorry to generalise here, but I have met quite a few PE teachers in my life who were passive aggressive little hitlers quite unlike other teachers. They often don't seem to be very nice people - I talk of the maybe 10 I have known.

I am sorry if I offended any PE teachers I am sure nice ones do exist.

[Montybojangles]

You say the teachers left because there was talking. This would suggest to me an announcement along the lines of.. Everyone quiet please (no one shuts up)...right, I'm going outside to give you a minute to think about proper behaviour in class, and when I walk back in I expect some quiet and respect... Leaves, comes back, still noisy and ignoring teacher-cue forceful loud command to get out side and get running if they can't behave inside etc.
Your daughter may be well behaved, but I'm sure there's a few in a class of 40 who will push as far as they can.

[BookFairy]

I agree marriedinwhite

If there were 2 teachers at least 1 should have stayed and immediately dealt with any messing around before it escalated. If there are students in the group who have behavioural problems then there should be a teacher present, regardless of the fact that they're 13 and ought to know better.

A work at an FE College and there are many students who can't be trusted to behave unsupervised at the age of 18, never mind 13.

[andtheycalleditbunnylove]

were you there? children say all sorts of things.

[Primafacie]

Can I just LOL at the shudder for being made to run in the cold?

I was born and raised in Canada and we played outside from reception every single day, including in -30C weather. I have clear recollections of being made to dig in the snow with bare hands, aged about ten, in -10C or so, as part of PE to "build a fort". Also have memories of going cross country skiing as a mandatory school trip, at A levels-equivalent and it was -32c outside. We were all so warm we were in tshirts and they were soaked with sweat, although one of my mates got pretty bad frostbite on one ear. :)

Seriously OP, it is not that cold over here. Ever.

Going back to the Op, I think you are massively overreacting.

[ilovesooty]

I never did bleep tests at school - we spent PE lessons exercising, trampolining, climbing ropes, vaulting, doing things that appeared to have a plan and a purpose

Classic example of someone who went to school and therefore deems themselves qualified to criticise the curriculum years later. I'd suggest that qualified teachers are capable of deciding what should be taught.

If the teachers left the class unsupervised, that is the only issue worth clarifying IMO.

[StuntGirl]

Sounds like a lot of something over nothing.