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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

DS Last one picked in PE

483 replies

GoldenLightNights · 09/02/2022 22:32

AIBU to contact the teacher with regards to this:

DS is 9, he’s a wonderful child, great at all things science and maths related but not so much at sports. He plays football outside of school for one of the lower ability teams and sort of enjoys it, he isn’t forced to play or anything like that.

Anyway today at school he had PE, we’ve never had any issues before but today for some reason the teacher let two boys pick teams and my son was the last to be picked. He is quite upset especially as one of the boys doing the picking is a close friend.
Anyway I find the idea of letting other children pick teams horrendous and if not my son some child will be picked last. I actually thought this method of choosing teams was done away with years ago!
I want to contact the teacher to ask if he would consider adopting a new approach to team selection. My husband says I’m jumping the gun and to wait to see if it happens again…… so what do you think?
He was properly upset this evening 😢

OP posts:
Maestrog · 09/02/2022 23:33

I'm with your husband on this one. I wonder if the strength of your reaction is more about your experience than his.

Marzipanfruit · 09/02/2022 23:35

@Petsop

Think you are helicoptering here. When you are academically bright as it sounds like your son is, he gets to be great in the classroom several times a week. Top set. Great grades. Better life prospects. Other kids in his class will spend all their time in the classroom not being the bright ones - and don’t they know it. Streamed into the bottom set, never getting more than a C even with their biggest effort. Being made fun of for being the ‘thick ones.’

On the sports pitch, sometimes this is those kids time to shine. And your sons turn to feel what it’s like to not be the best and how to treat others. Needs to work both ways.

From someone who was shit academically but a natural sportswoman :)

That is not the case. Many are both 'bright' and good at sport, or not academic or sporty. What used to be tantamount to public humiliation doesn't happen in the same way for other subjects - I don't remember being asked to pick a team for art or music!! It is as another poster said, archaic.
expat101 · 09/02/2022 23:36

I clearly remember this from school too and I'm in my 50's. Thought it had been stopped yonks ago.

I would certainly mention it to the teacher quietly. Hopefully, she realised what had occurred anyhow.

Original poster
GoldenLightNights · 09/02/2022 23:36

Maestrog yes I was worried that my own experience was clouding my thinking but in a way I can really empathise with him as it is genuinely shit!

OP posts:
mummykel16 · 09/02/2022 23:45

This is one of those reasons that stop some children going to school at all, contact the school op.

bellsbuss · 09/02/2022 23:46

I wasn't aware this was still a thing, I remember it myself and the feeling of relief if I wasn't picked last. Would not want that for my own children.

massiveblob · 09/02/2022 23:46

I'm a coach of various sports. This is very very bad practice. Destroys kids confidence

Katya213 · 09/02/2022 23:46

@appleturnovers

It's not just the being picked last. IME the worst part is the rest of the team who've already been picked whispering to the team leader "pick her, pick her, no, not her, oh I hope we don't get her, oh god, no, not her, OH FOR F**K'S SAKE" and then giving you dirty looks and sulking when you go to join their team.
I was that girl! Always the last EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK.
Barcodescanner22 · 09/02/2022 23:46

My son had an awful year 6. My only concern was his mental health rather than sats etc. on top of everything else going on, His primary school had a PE teacher from a sports company, he did this way of picking teams. Part of the problem was he was only interested in the kids that were good at sports so they were the ones who got to pick the teams and my son was one of four who were always picked last.
I ended up speaking to his class teacher about it who fortunately agreed that teams should not be picked this way. I told the teacher that if it didn't stop I would withdraw him from PE. I was told I couldn't do that so I said I can, he just won't he in school on PE days. I also pointed out that it was just a PE lesson not a match so it wasn't important for all to be really good.

massiveblob · 09/02/2022 23:46

@appleturnovers

It's not just the being picked last. IME the worst part is the rest of the team who've already been picked whispering to the team leader "pick her, pick her, no, not her, oh I hope we don't get her, oh god, no, not her, OH FOR F**K'S SAKE" and then giving you dirty looks and sulking when you go to join their team.
This
massiveblob · 09/02/2022 23:49

Picking teams like this is a cruel form of public humiliation. Teachers should just split the kids up

Saz12 · 09/02/2022 23:49

Oh, I’m glad/sad that others got picked last week after week and had the same humiliated shame of trying not to mind. I’m late 40’s and still think of mys eg if as spectacularly bad at “sport”. All sport, all exercise. Not just hockey...

Of course it’s not OK to have kids pick teams. Spectacularly bad practice- teacher should know the kids enough to be able to put them into evenly-balanced groups.

GettingThemFromHereToThere · 09/02/2022 23:52

YANBU. I also think it's a pretty barbaric thing to do to the kids.

Some will say "that's life". But it's not, when you're an adult you can choose to engage or disengage with pretty much most things. I choose not to do the things I don't like or am rubbish at. Whereas school kids can't choose.

I would definitely write in, explaining the effect it's had and ask them to reconsider. But only if the teacher is nice (my old PE teacher would have probably teased the child forever more - he was a knob).

DuchessAndThePea · 09/02/2022 23:53

@appleturnovers

It's not just the being picked last. IME the worst part is the rest of the team who've already been picked whispering to the team leader "pick her, pick her, no, not her, oh I hope we don't get her, oh god, no, not her, OH FOR F**K'S SAKE" and then giving you dirty looks and sulking when you go to join their team.
This was my prep school experience. I shined academically but was always chosen last for PE. And it was every bloody PE lesson. It's put me off sports and most exercise for life. I have feelings of dread having to do the mum's race at my DC's sports day but wish to be a good role model so give it a go. I still come last.

I think you're within your rights to call the school on this one. There are plenty of ways to pick teams without having to resort to public humiliation.

PastMyBestBeforeDate · 09/02/2022 23:57

@Petsop and if you let the lesson play out without the public choosing those of us were crap would still have been crap whilst you shone. The difference is that you got to tell us you didn't want us. School might have discriminated against you but PE was the only time your peers got to do it with staff enabling it.

Mumoftwoinprimary · 10/02/2022 00:15

@Petsop

Think you are helicoptering here. When you are academically bright as it sounds like your son is, he gets to be great in the classroom several times a week. Top set. Great grades. Better life prospects. Other kids in his class will spend all their time in the classroom not being the bright ones - and don’t they know it. Streamed into the bottom set, never getting more than a C even with their biggest effort. Being made fun of for being the ‘thick ones.’

On the sports pitch, sometimes this is those kids time to shine. And your sons turn to feel what it’s like to not be the best and how to treat others. Needs to work both ways.

From someone who was shit academically but a natural sportswoman :)

But choosing teams doesn’t affect whether you get to shine at sport or not? It just wastes time that could be spent playing the sport when 1,2,1,2…. is so much more efficient.

It is the equivalent of letting the top table at maths look at all the other kids in the class and choose between them “who is the thickest” and then announce the answer. Thankfully that would never happen.

Also the whole clever = bad at sport stereotype is nothing more than a lazy stereotype. You get kids who shine at everything. You get kids who shine at some things. You get kids who don’t shine at anything.

Is it still ok to humiliate the kids who are bad at sport if they also struggle in the classroom or is it just the clever children that you want this for?

(For the record - in my household - all 4 people are academically brilliant, two of them are comfortably above average sports wise, two are brilliant sports wise. No nerves touched here - I was always picked early on - just sheer human decency.)

Lorw · 10/02/2022 00:19

This still happens when teachers pick teams when the sporty kids realise you’re on your team you’re given funny looks and they whisper about not wanting you on their team etc, happened to me several times at school, I wasn’t bad at sport just had no confidence to do it in front of other people so all the really sporty competitive kids hated me being on their team and made it well known 😑

Original poster
GoldenLightNights · 10/02/2022 00:20

mumoftwoinprimary that’s so well put, that’s exactly it 🙌🏼

OP posts:
SilkySusan · 10/02/2022 00:22

That was always me, and it's given me a lifelong hatred of team sports. I'd wait and see if it happens again - and if it does, I'd be straight in there.

SquirrelG · 10/02/2022 00:23

I was always picked last! I didn’t care, my talents were in dance but definitely not anything that required a ball. It didn’t affect me OP, in fact I laugh about it today!

It didn't bother me either. I knew I was hopeless at sport so being picked last (or almost last) was something I expected. It hasn't affected my life at all.

user1745 · 10/02/2022 00:53

I don't really understand the comments about resilience. You don't get resilient to the point where your weaknesses being made publicly obvious doesn't hurt. You can get to the point where you don't say anything or outwardly show that it hurts, but it always stings and you don't just get used to it. You can become resilient in the sense that you understand you aren't good at sport but it doesn't upset you because you understand everyone has things they are good at and things they aren't good at, but that doesn't mean you won't care when the thing you aren't good at causes you to be publicly singled out.

Unfortunately I suppose PE teachers were the sporty ones when they were at school so they probably don't know how it feels to be picked last. I can't think of any other subject where this regularly happened when I was at school.

WanJames · 10/02/2022 00:59

It’s not new…i

LoveFall · 10/02/2022 01:05

There is no good reason to pick teams that way. It is cruel and rather than builds resilience, it undermines it.

Teams should be chosen randomly.

Having my very sporty child always picked and the other, who had many other strengths, feel sad and left out, I think any teachers using a non random method needs a big training session.

Kanaloa · 10/02/2022 01:20

@Petsop

Think you are helicoptering here. When you are academically bright as it sounds like your son is, he gets to be great in the classroom several times a week. Top set. Great grades. Better life prospects. Other kids in his class will spend all their time in the classroom not being the bright ones - and don’t they know it. Streamed into the bottom set, never getting more than a C even with their biggest effort. Being made fun of for being the ‘thick ones.’

On the sports pitch, sometimes this is those kids time to shine. And your sons turn to feel what it’s like to not be the best and how to treat others. Needs to work both ways.

From someone who was shit academically but a natural sportswoman :)

I don’t think these are really comparable though.

Imagine one of those kids known as ‘the thick kids’ standing up in front of the board when they’re about to get split into groups to discuss their latest novel that they’re studying. The brainy kids are choosing teams, and they whisper to each other ‘NOT him, he can’t understand the themes. Oh not her, she reads SO slowly. Not Brian, you know he stutters and he’ll mess up our presentation.’ And the child who struggles with literature stands there until everyone else has been chosen and then one brainy team leader rolls their eyes and says ‘ok I’ll take x.’

That isn’t ‘giving the academic kids a chance to shine.’ It’s just highlighting how bad you are at something and making you feel embarrassed and small.

It would never happen or be accepted in any other class.

Absolutely the sporty kids should get a chance to shine, perhaps by organising team displays and games so they can show off how much they’ve developed and done really well, plus praising them in pe class. But not by ensuring everyone knows that other kids are shit at gym.

HootOwl · 10/02/2022 01:44

@Petsop

Think you are helicoptering here. When you are academically bright as it sounds like your son is, he gets to be great in the classroom several times a week. Top set. Great grades. Better life prospects. Other kids in his class will spend all their time in the classroom not being the bright ones - and don’t they know it. Streamed into the bottom set, never getting more than a C even with their biggest effort. Being made fun of for being the ‘thick ones.’

On the sports pitch, sometimes this is those kids time to shine. And your sons turn to feel what it’s like to not be the best and how to treat others. Needs to work both ways.

From someone who was shit academically but a natural sportswoman :)

I don't recall any academic activities where children are asked to select classmates in order of preference to join their teams based on their academic ability, with everyone pointing and advising on which ones are "thick" and should be left until last.

Streaming is done by class teachers. Sports team selection should be the same.