Different PE for girls and boys

[Mich0027]

My son hates rugby at school and wants to do netball which only the girls play. AIBU to ask if he can?!

DS2 is built like a tank, has little sense of danger and a high pain threshold. He's a natural at rugby. He's easily capable of knocking the legs out from under other boys but he doesn't enjoy rugby and would rather not play. I worry about him hurting others or getting hurt.

One of the boys in DS2's year (he's 13) is the size of a 17 year old. Seeing that boy, and my tank of a son, alongside little boys who have yet to hit puberty makes you realise why some boys hate contact sports. I don't see the point in making those children anxious and miserable. There should be an alternative activity offered.

As a male ex Rugby Union player, I have to agree with what Jaques says. I think it would be extremely dangerous for boys and girls to play mixed contact Rugby beyond primary school. At that age (and sometimes earlier) boy's muscle density begins to increase and there would be very few girls who could cope physically with this challenge.

How do I know? Mainly because I was a late developer and, although I loved Rugby, I simply couldn't compete with my peers until my mid teens, when I began to 'fill out'. In the three or so years before I grew, I got beaten to a pulp on a regular basis... Fortunately for me, I had some useful skills and stuck with it until I was big enough, but it wasn't until I was over 18 that I began to be selected to play for actual teams.
Perhaps one or two girls could cope and might develop fast enough but I wouldn't want to be the PE teacher responsible...

Women's Rugby, however, is a fantastic sport and I'm happy to watch it whenever the opportunity arises. They don't have the same power as the men but the skills and tactics are amazing, especially when you consider how relatively young a sport women's Rugby is.

As for the OP. When I was at (an all boys) school you had no choice but to play Rugby, there wasn't even a football alternative. The kids who hated Rugby still had to play but they were never teamed against the guys who did want to play - they were sent off to another pitch and quite simply didn't put as little effort into it as they could. If the ball came to them they simply kicked it away or passed it (ie threw it away asap).

I'd suggest this might be your son's best option to avoid the wrath of the PE teacher (and to avoid potential difficulties with his peers). He needs to appear willing but do everything possible to avoid actually taking part: It's not that difficult because at that age Rugby is pretty disorganised, it just requires a bit of imagination. I'd suggest that this approach might be a pretty useful lifeskill...

considering ds’s schools new gender policy says that children should use the facilities of whatever gender they identify (and they might be gender fluid) with I should have told him to self I’d as a girl for PE lessons!

I would jokingly suggest the same, but this would seem to fit exactly with the TRA's agenda - and they are deadly, deadly serious. Because it's apparently so outrageous to think that a boy might like to play netball (or a girl rugby or football), the only 'logical' conclusion is that this person who looks like a boy and hitherto never made any suggestion that he felt otherwise, must therefore actually BE a girl and must be encouraged to 'transition' and identify as such.

After a young age, it's not a good idea for boys and girls to play against each other, but why are all sports not offered to all children for single-sex teams?

And, forgive my ignorance here, but what is really so significantly different between netball and basketball, or rounders and baseball, that makes the one clearly only suitable for girls yet the other clearly only suitable for boys?

Boys are boys and girls are girls; sport should be for all.

It’s ok Built. He’d never have done it. He’s quite a budding feminist is ds.

You think this will help him to fit in? How do you think the other kids will treat him if he is the only boy playing netball?

Ds is the only boy in his half of the year group doing dance. There is one other boy in the other half. They both fit in fine and are doing what they enjoy.

Its making boys who like “girly things” feeling like they don’t fit in and vice versa that’s exacerbating the problems with kids thinking there must be something wrong with themselves.

But if netball isn’t practicable due to lack of interest offer an alternative that is.

As above, it makes sense to me that girls and boys at puberty should be split for sports, the choice of sports should not necessarily be different. At my daughter's school, in games lessons, girls do football, netball, rounders, tennis and boys do football, rugby, cricket and tennis. Why they can't all do netball and cricket for example is a mystery to me.

Girls also get dance as a PE topic for a term, as well as things like running and gymnastics. As far as I know the boys don't do dance though. Why not? There is no reason they shouldn't do dance for a term. Street dance in particular is becoming more and more popular with boys.

Also a contact sport with risks involved should be strictly optional as an extra-curricular activity not a compulsory PE module.

Sounds like private school, in which case UABU.

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I'm a pe teacher and would suggest that it's trickier to teach mixed Sex pe above 10/11 years as the physical differences, mostly in strength begin to become unequal around this age. It's also a key aim for pe to provide opportunities to experience sports which these young people might go onto play outside school and when they leave school. Eg there aren't boys netball leagues easily available but there are girls...
For rugby in particular I think you have a good case based on the current focus on rugby safety to begin an open discussion around the necessity of it to be taught in school and can it be done safely. Are all the pe teachers properly equipped to teach Rugby as I think with current injury levels additional qualifications (on top of genetic teaching qualifications) would be advisable. If I were in charge of a PE dept I wouldn't teach curriculum football or rugby as the levels become too unequal, some boys eat, sleep and breathe football or rugby outside of school and therefore don't gain much from doing it another hour or two a week, the others struggle when playing/ training with those 'superstars' is teach hockey, cricket, tennis, badminton, gymnastics, swimming (if facilities available), outdoor adventurous activities and essentially a broader curriculum than just widely played team games.

Until recently our school did mixed gym but separate games, with boys and girls doing different sports. That's what older dd did. Now we've got a new head of PE and he has tried to make it more unisex. Girls still do games separately from the boys but they now do girls' rugby whereas they didn't before. So year 7 dd is doing rugby at the moment, older one didn't do this. I'll be interested to see what other traditionally boys' sports year 7 dd gets to do

Eggplants you must know that once puberty begins the difference isnt just size but muscle mass, lung capacity and skeletal formation. A physically fit, 5 ft 6 55kg 15 year old girl and a physically fit, 5 ft 6 55kg 15 year old boy don't have equivalent muscle mass, skeletal development or lung capacity. Just as that 15 year old boy doesn't match the same fitbess, height and weight fully adult male.

Thing is I can see the value in team games but as a means to fitness they are useless without individual fitness being focused on. Team games done poorly often demotivate people when it comes to fitness and activity. For me, school PE put me off team games for life (a process finally completed by LARP.)

Thing is, ANY contact sport needs competent trainers, risk assessments and trust between participants, which at secondary school can be rather thin on the ground for many students. I did do martial arts out of school in an environment which I generally felt safe. I would have not been willing to do so in the context of school PE as I would not trust it to be safe.

I hope that PE teachers and those in training can read these threads and get some insight into why PE is so divisive at secondary school and see how to amend this.