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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To be unhappy about mixed sex PE lessons at secondary school?

100 replies

MissHooliesCardigan · 10/02/2016 20:40

I've just found out from DD who's 13 and in year 8 that boys and girls do PE together right up to year 11. This seems totally wrong to me. DD is very sporty but I'd noticed that her enthusiasm has really waned since she started secondary school. I can imagine that many girls feel really self conscious in front of the boys - they even do swimming together but I mainly feel that it's really demoralising for girls competing against boys as the boys will always have a natural advantage. Surely, if they're trying to encourage girls into sport, this is just going to put them off? It certainly has with DD. I love the school but I'm really pissed off about this. AIBU or do lots of schools do this?

OP posts:

NickiFury · 10/02/2016 21:29

I was at an all girls school for a time as well Schwab, up till secondary age and got well stuck in there despite not being great. Loved netball, loved tennis, loved athletics. Came out of that school and started mixed PE at aged fourteen or thereabouts at the new school and went from gung ho to not wanting to do a thing for fear of being knocked over or shouted out for getting it wrong.

pointythings · 10/02/2016 21:30

My DDs have mixed PE lessons. It isn't an issue. And where I'm from (Holland) PE is mixed right up until the end of secondary.

Mistigri · 10/02/2016 21:32

School sport classes here are mixed all the way to age 18. In some sports, different goals are set for individual students, based on sex or age or weight or height. For eg target times for 1500 metres were based on sex while high jump was based on height (they measured from their tummy button to the floor and their target jump height was based on that). I don't have a problem with it at all.

Schwabischeweihnachtskanne · 10/02/2016 21:32

DD has 1 mixed double sport lesson a week and one single sex double sport lesson. They did swimming in the single sex lesson and that was the only thing she hated (despite liking swimming recreationally) as she is one of the shortest girls and couldn't reach the bottom during water volley ball and was convinced most of the others could (possibly some were just better at treading water...) It is also the only thing they've been timed at and she isn't a fast swimmer.

She likes the mixed lessons as they are more "much about" lessons where they play a variety of different sports and made-up-school-sports. They have no uniform at her school and can have any kind of sport-suitable clothing they want for PE, so there are no clothing related reasons to be self concious (she has some random jogging bottoms and a T shirt of her own choosing and can swap what she wears as PE kit as and when she likes).

Schwabischeweihnachtskanne · 10/02/2016 21:33

muck about not much

Sallyhasleftthebuilding · 10/02/2016 21:35

DD school has single sex lessons - usual girls netball boys cricket - both do rounders - boys football - girls football is after school club !!

Hadn't given it much thought!

Schwabischeweihnachtskanne · 10/02/2016 21:36

Nicki if the problem was "fear of being knocked over or shouted out for getting it wrong." couldn't the problem have been the culture of the new school, not the fact PE was mixed - decent PE teachers shouldn't have been allowing that to happen, and it can happen just as much at a competitive, sporty all girls school.

shazzarooney99 · 10/02/2016 21:38

I really dont see what the problem is?

NickiFury · 10/02/2016 21:40

Schwab I was an army child. I went to four different secondary schools, two of them did mixed PE, same attitudes at both. Two didn't and I got stuck back in again.

mum11970 · 10/02/2016 21:40

My DD (15) does mixed PE for GCSE. Her compulsory school curriculum PE is single sex.

Griphook · 10/02/2016 21:41

Yanbu, mixed sex pe ruined my education. I hate doing pe with boys. I had massive breast and was just gawped at a the time. Hated it.
I just bunked off.
Tried to break my arm once to get out of it

3WiseWomen · 10/02/2016 21:41

Doing PE together has one big adavantage. You stop having 'sports for the boys and sports for girls' as if we were from two different species....

NinjaLeprechaun · 10/02/2016 21:48

One huge advantage of mixed PE is that, apparently, boys who compete alongside/against girls as children and teens are more likely to accept women as equals outside sports as adults.
All other considerations aside, that's an argument in favour in my opinion.

Personally, as a hopelessly non-sporty person, I always preferred mixed lessons (some were and some weren't at my school). For some reason the athletic girls at my school were far more competitive than the boys were. Which is probably why they won championships while the boys teams struggled to win a game. The boys' response to my hopelessness was less scathing.

Schwabischeweihnachtskanne · 10/02/2016 21:50

3WiseWomen I agree that "Doing PE together has one big adavantage. You stop having 'sports for the boys and sports for girls' as if we were from two different species...."

The only team sport I remember enjoying was football, which we played once, and once only - never got to do it again, it was some kind of "free choice" anomalous lesson we had towards the end of 5th form (year 11 as it is now). Bloody hated netball and f*ing rounders and hockey and tennis... Knew I'd be rubbish at cross country so always insisted on treating it as a country stroll... was good at athletics at primary but then I stopped growing just when everyone else started and lost interest when I became a bit rubbish - also we didn't really do interesting athletics, just running races really...

Nicky sorry you had that experience - I just know the PE teachers and your peers can put the generic "you" firmly in your place around PE in a school with that kind of culture regardless of whether it is mixed or not.

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 10/02/2016 22:00

Meh. I did partly mixed and partly separated (in Scotland in the late 90s). Basketball, gymnastics, circuits, volleyball, swimming and Scottish country dancing were all mixed. Athletics and cross country were done side by side (ie girls 100m then boys 100m) but in sex-segregated groups. We were separated for a few things - girls did netball and hockey, boys did football and rugby - but that was only a few modules out of the year.

Personally, I couldn't have given a crap if boys were watching me in my gym kit or swimming costume, right up until we stopped doing any form of PE after Standard Grades (aged 15/16). I was far too competitive and was too busy beating most of them at everything.

Original poster

MissHooliesCardigan · 11/02/2016 08:43

Thanks for the replies, I honestly didn't know this was so common. I'm still not entirely convinced especially about mixed swimming. Teenagers can be very self conscious about their bodies and I can imagine a girl with large breasts or a boy with a huge belly or man boobs finding it a hideous experience and being teased or bullied. I'm assuming mixed rugby doesn't exist as that would be downright dangerous.
We did do mixed country dancing which was hilarious- the boys would all congregate on one side of the hall with all the girls at the other side. The teachers would tell us to partner up and the boys would all slowly shuffle over to the girls, looking at their feet the whole time and mumble 'Will you be my partner?' whilst blushing furiously.

OP posts:

Sallyingforth · 11/02/2016 10:00

The teachers would tell us to partner up and the boys would all slowly shuffle over to the girls, looking at their feet the whole time and mumble 'Will you be my partner?' whilst blushing furiously.
That was my experience too. It was always the boys who were embarrassed.

jay55 · 11/02/2016 10:06

We had single sex pe until yesr 11 where we'd basically choose what sport to do so would be mixed for volleyball, basketball etc.
I don't think we girls would have had the chance to do rugby if we'd had mixed classes from the start.

PurpleDaisies · 11/02/2016 10:08

I am still traumatised from country dancing in school. They were fewer boys than girls on my class and because I was tall I always had to be a boy. I didn't like it.

LittleLionMansMummy · 11/02/2016 10:17

We did mostly mixed classes - rounders, badminton, cross country running, basketball, dodge ball etc. We split for netball and football - much to my disgust as I was better at football (and enjoyed it more) than many of the boys. None of the girls had a problem with mixed lessons - it was all deemed totally normal. I don't understand the issue.

helenahandbag · 11/02/2016 10:23

We always had mixed PE lessons, I didn't know mixed sex schools actually separated the boys and girls. We didn't do swimming as there wasn't a local pool but everything else was mixed.

kslatts · 11/02/2016 10:32

As a sports coach there is an unfair advantage and I can see how it can be demoralising. Sport is one of the activities where there is a divide. It's biological it can't be helped.

Surely if both teams are mixed with 50% of the team boys and 50% of the team girls then there isn't an unfair advantage, it's not the same as a girls team playing a boys team.

I also don't see the issue with training as a mixed group. Outside of school my dd (16) goes to MMA classes and trains with men and women. Sometimes she is the only girl in the group and it doesn't bother her at all. I think if she had always had single sex PE classes at school then she may have felt more self-conscious. She knows as a girl she is not going to match the boys.

mamaneedsamojito · 11/02/2016 10:35

I did mixed lessons at secondary school unless we naturally split into gender groups as a result of the activities on offer - eg trampolining vs football. I don't recall it being a male vs female thing though, just a preference for different types of exercise.

badtime · 11/02/2016 10:39

We did 'PE' together and 'games' either separately or together, depending on the sport e.g. swimming was together (how were they supposed to provide an extra pool? or should everybody only get half the time?), but hockey was separate (many hockey pitches and different type of play). Some sports were completely separate - no girls' rugby or cricket, no boys' netball.

LittleLionMansMummy · 11/02/2016 10:42

I also think that assuming all boys like and are good at sport is as bad as saying that girls don't like it and aren't as good. My school had hugely varying abilities, likes and dislikes as is reflected in life generally. Sure, some of the strongest boys were better than some of the strongest girls but it all evened out, especially as the teams were mixed up with varying abilities.

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