To think that PE could be reconsidered in order to be a more meaningful and enjoyable experience for secondary aged pupils (and primary too!)?

[EveSix]

This week, I'm hearing so many of DC1's school friends and parents express their frustration with the experience of PE in school (secondary age in our case, across several schools, two counties / local education authorities). So many pupils seem to loath it and struggle to participate with any real sense of enthusiasm or enjoyment.

In DC1's friendship group, PE gives rise to lots of anxiety about changing bodies and comparison; nobody seems to feel better for a stint on the field. I'm an active adult now and love physical exercise on my own terms, but remember feeling very much like DC1's friends when I went to school.

Looking at the National Curriculum for PE (KS3 copied in below), I can't help but to feel as if there could be another way of teaching young people to actually enjoy physical activity and feel good and safe in their bodies. There are so many ways to be active, and some of them, if approached sensitively and creatively, would be bound to appeal to kids who don't feel there is a place for them in PE lessons at the moment.

Across the schools I know, there seems to be a big focus on competitive team sports and track, which just isn't going to be everyone's idea of fun. I'm sure many more pupils with SEN and anxiety are exempt from PE than geography or food tech because it's can be such a high stress environment. When I exercise, I'm definitely not looking for a stressy time.

Does anyone care to join me in musing on what alternative provision and activities might be enjoyed more broadly if made available?
If you didn't like PE the way it was taught at your secondary school, is there an activity you think you might have enjoyed? Or perhaps a different approach to teaching PE altogether? Contributions from DC welcome!

YABU: young people just need to crack on with it; PE is character-building

YANBU: PE could be made more enjoyable and relevant to a wider range of pupils

My suggestions would be (some might involve travel to facilities not within easy walking distance):
Yoga
Pilates
Nordic walking
Mindfulness walking
Archery
Fencing
Badminton
Table tennis
Rollerskating
Ice skating (DC1's school is in spitting distance of an ice skating rink, for instance)
Gym sessions for cardio (exercise bikes, treadmills, rowing machines etc) and free weights

I am convinced that if I'd had the experience of learning to enjoy a range of physical activities that made me feel good about myself in a relaxed environment during OR lessons, I would have been happier in general at school.

Here's the the first part if the PE Programme of Study for KS3:

Purpose of study
A high-quality physical education curriculum inspires all pupils to succeed and excel in competitive sport and other physically-demanding activities. It should provide opportunities for pupils to become physically confident in a way which supports their health and fitness.

Opportunities to compete in sport and other activities build character and help to embed values such as fairness and respect.

Aims
The national curriculum for physical education aims to ensure that all pupils:
 develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities
 are physically active for sustained periods of time
 engage in competitive sports and activities
 lead healthy, active lives.
Attainment targets
By the end of each key stage, pupils are expected to know, apply and understand the matters, skills and processes specified in the relevant programme of study.
Schools are not required by law to teach the example content in [square brackets].

@carefullycourageous

The collaboration comes after the competition I’m afraid. My nephew finally managed to get onto a clinical psych doctorate after many attempts for example. It goes without saying the process itself was competetive.

Kids aren’t stupid they’re put into maths sets. My son is in top maths and many of his friends aren’t so it doesn’t really take a genius to work out you’re better than someone at a certain subject.

How many people feel that their own children are having bad PE experiences now/recently at school? I don't see how it helps to talk about what happened 40 years ago.

Yes - my DD with ASD has been in tears tonight because she has 'circuits' tomorrow in PE. She says she can't do any of the exercises, and that the teacher just stands and shouts at her (and others) to "work harder" and "you're slowing eveyone else down". Her attendance has been as low as 40%. It was higher when she was part time. When they made her go back full time, her attendance actually went down. Whereas she was previously allowed to miss PE, when they started insisting on full time, including PE, her anxiety (which causes migraines) was so bad she was unable to go into school at all on a PE day. This year they are insisting on full time again. So we are having tears this evening over PE, and I have no idea whether she will be in any sort of state to go in tomorrow at all. Funnily enough, DD enjoys badminton, squash, and sometimes chooses to come the the gym with me and use the machines. But hates school PE because the teachers single people out and shout at them.

State school teacher - never have our PE teachers screamed at children, they employ loads of strategies so that students are not the 'last choice' for teams. I really do not see this culture of belittling children for not being naturally sporty. Of course they pick school teams to compete against other schools and succeed but students are not pressured into this at all.

because in maths you aren’t on a team. If you’re shit you aren’t holding anyone else back and being bullied for it. I was regularly bullied for being the weakest member of a team and spoiling it for everyone else. I would often fake an injury so I could sit out and not be picked on for dragging everyone else down.

Well you missed the mixed ability teaching of Maths and focus on group work 😂. As a Maths teacher I ignored all of this because it was counter productive and it made students feel like shit. Good PE staff do the same and encourage activities to engage most students. If your schools PE staff don't do this then bring it up with the school but don't expect school to do yoga or fencing because it will suit your child - there really is not the capacity. Schools generally do their best within the constraints they have.

And I can tell you most students in bottom set Maths feel like they are failing part of a team or not.

@AtomicBlondeRose

Teach what subject? PE? If so it sounds truly tragic for the kids who do actually want to compete in sport.

This thread reminds me of my youngest sons football team who got into a tournament final and lost…. Except it was agreed at the end that they would say both teams won…. because apparently it’s not fair to let 7 year olds lose a game of football. I mean what a joke. My son looked confused receiving the winners medal. That isn’t how you create confident kids that’s how you create delusional kids.

I told him in the car on the way home his team lost. He said I know mummy I did think it was a bit strange. Yes strange indeed.

Personally I loved PE at school, though I was really late to mature physically and still a child really at age 15 so maybe that has something to do with it. DCs both enjoy PE but are primary age

In my school we did swimming, netball, hockey and athletics. I could envisage a situation where there is more choice being appealing for people not keen on team sports - so swimming or yoga, netball.or table tennis.

I hated PE in the early 90s, and DD hates it now. I used to walk around the cross country track chatting to an equally disinterested pal. My daughter does similar. Her teacher has remarked on her lack of engagement. DD is good at her classroom based subjects, she just hates PE!

DD and I have argued with her dad over this. He LOVED PE and team sports. Loved the competitive nature of it all. He says it should stay as it is. We say no, it should be a mix. So DD wasn't stopped try Yoga and aerobics but they aren't options. Her dad says, if you are competitive on the field, you are competitive off it...and we point to his terrible lack of engagement in the classroom (He left school with one good GCSE) so his point doesn't stand.

My daughter walks for miles. Loves a good ramble. Likes the outdoors. She's fit and a healthy weight. I just wish she could do the yoga/aerobics/gym/climbing walls instead of boring football and cricket.

I disagree that process was 'competitive' in the same way sport is competitive.

Of course the kids know. That is not the same either.

Why should we stop others from competing and being number one?
School should not be competitive. Kids should be doing their personal individual best, no competing against others. No other subject except PE is competitive, and numerous people have said they dislike PE for that reason.

And life is not competitive either so stop talking rubbish! I don’t compete against others at all, ever. I sometimes collaborate and work with others, but I couldn’t tell you the last time I competed in anything. It’s actually frowned upon in most workplaces.

PE is streamed at my sons state school. All the sporty ones do football etc and the nerdy ones like my son relish their place on the B (more fun) team. His teacher has always found something nice to say about his efforts which is fab as he has dyspraxia.

Because it's a public health issue. The name of the subject is Physical Education, not competitive sport. Sport can, and indeed should, be part of PE, but not the whole. Children and young people need to learn that exercise comes in many forms and can be enjoyable, not the unpleasant experience that school PE, with its emphasis on traditional team sports, still is for many.
A curriculum which not only fails to engage youngsters but all too often actively discourages them from exercising is bad for both the individuals and society. Clearly there are limitations in both time and resources available to schools and you can't please all of the people all of the time, but I do think there are improvements which could be made. We, on the whole, lead increasingly sedentary lives. Certainly my parents' day to day lives involved more physical activity than mine, and I think my childhood had more "incidental" exercise in it than is the norm now. So formal exercise is becoming more important to our health and I think it's crucial that young people are not put off at an early age.

I completely agree. I couldn't stand PE at school and now I'm super sporty - love the gym and swimming and am a real sports buff.
I'm amazed that with all this emphasis on healthy eating and exercise that they still haven't improved and invested in the options for sport. I don't think it would (or should) be any more expensive to provide netball or hockey than yoga or gymnastics etc

Do girls still need to wear PE knickers (knickers in thick material worn over your own) with a T-shirt? I’m assuming they don’t have people why clipboards outside showers? I really hope not as that was so overwhelmingly horrible that I stopped caring about the activity itself.

I like OPs suggestions.

So formal exercise is becoming more important to our health and I think it's crucial that young people are not put off at an early age.

Yes.
You can force someone to run, play a competitive sport, compete and exercise by bullying and intimidation. And the minute you have no power over them, they will stop.
It’s continually suggested that a whole range of society’s ills can be addressed by ‘It should be taught in schools’ Everything from finance to healthy eating and cooking to exercise and health. But unless it’s taught well and enjoyably, seen as useful, no one continues after compulsory schooling stops making you learn.

When’s the last time you learnt a poem by heart? Used geometry? Painted a picture? Ran a mile?
I’ve done all those things this week. Except the running. And neither of my children have done a competitive sport since they left school at 16 and went on to college.

I seem to be in the minority here but I really enjoyed PE in school (even though I'd always been the overweight kid who didn't look the sporty type). We had good facilities, there were a few sports that I was really good at and I'm quite competitive. I played quite a bit of netball in the first few years of secondary so would be one of the first to be picked when we played netball or basketball in class. I did a lot of swimming outside of school so would always win the events I did in the swimming gala. We had a gym in the school and it was quite an event when I'd have competitions against the boys during class in there, I think I even did the gym as a lunchtime club (though it was a long time ago so I can't say that for definite).

There were sports I hated (hockey) and was rubbish at (tennis, badminton) and none of my female friends enjoyed sports. During the annual sports competitions, as the sports captain, I would end up doing so many different events as it was impossible to get the other girls to do them. I disliked the communal changing room after swimming and I remember having to tell our male teacher on poolside in front of the other kids why I wasn't participating in the swimming lesson aged 12 the day after I started my first period.

I volunteered with young teenagers for a while. We used to do sport events about once a month during our sessions. It obviously wasn't enough to get the kids fit so I used to see it as an opportunity to introduce them to a variety of sports/exercise that they may not have tried previously in the hope they would find something they would enjoy. Usually, it would involve hiring somewhere or someone to run the sessions, we used to charge the cost of this to the parents so I can see why a school would have difficulty with this.

Even though I had a good introduction to sport, I don't really participate in regular, structured exercise now (I do lots of dog-walking and gardening and occasionally go swimming); I wish I did but find the idea of starting a sport/exercise now quite daunting and my friends either do exercise and are really good at it (seems a little ironic) so I'd feel a bit inadequate next to them, or they have no interest in it at all.

I hated PE at secondary school. I'd come from a small primary school where we just played during PE. I'd never played netball or hockey. When I got to secondary school it was expected that everyone already knew the rules, so they were never explained. I was consequently hopeless as I had no idea what I was doing. I still don't know how to play netball, tennis, hockey or badminton.

The other thing was the lack of privacy to change and the communal showers. The PE teacher used to keep a register of who was on their period. If you 'on' you didn't have to have a shower. There were lots of 'you were on last week, get in...' comments. Dreadful.

Fast forward to now... my DD hates PE. She is incredibly self conscious and won't change in the communal changing rooms. She wears her PE kit under her clothes which is far from ideal.

If I could change anything about PE in schools it would be to provide a private place to change.

Personally I think we should maybe do away with teaching PE at school and move towards a system of giving vouchers for a choice of exercise class/free sessions at the local pool/gym etc. With a set minimum of hours that school kids should complete each year to pass.

PE is one of the few subjects with no shortage of teachers and most PE teachers have to teach additional subjects due to recruitment issues. If you do away with PE in school you will also lose half of your geography/science/RE teachers.

At DS's school one of the PE teachers is also a yoga and Pilates instructor. She ran a lunch club as well as often taught it in PE. DS and his mates from the rugby teams loved it, they could feel the impact on their back and stretching out muscles. It helped that she was incredibly inclusive of everyone from the bulked-out kids, to the non sporty and everyone in between.

Conversely her colleague was a stereotypical PE teacher who was universally disliked particularly given his bias to the sporty boys and his pretty open disdain to anyone who didn't excel in his idea of 'good' sports which were basically football, athletics and tennis.

I'd be interested to see what gets taught in PE teacher training - do they stick to the traditional sports or do they encourage the student teachers to diversify?

I hated PE but my kids love it. They do do badminton as well as fitness classes.

A high-quality physical education curriculum inspires all pupils to succeed and excel in competitive sport.

Oh God, this is the kind of idiotic regressive comment that condemns generations of children to misery, humiliation, depression, and a lifetime of sedentary behaviour and obesity.

You can bet the person who came out with it, doesn't listen, doesn't give a stuff for the feelings or well being of other people, and is incapable of understanding that not everyone is just like them.

Ex PE teacher here. Your fantasy sounds great, but unachievable unless you are paying for a high end private school with the financial and human resources to deliver a personalised curriculum. You wouldn't expect this in any other subject area, I'm not sure how you expect a PE dept to cope with that. Don't get me wrong, it could be better, but team sports, going out in the rain sometimes within reason etc do provide some value and life lessons as well, with majority of kids finding something they can enjoy on the curriculum and enjoy it at an after school club (again for which teachers do not get paid any more for giving up their saturday mornings or lesson planning/marking time for) . I worked in a public school in a not so great area with limited facilities, we tried to offer a varied choice to encourage life long exercise, especially as the kids got older and their personalities and needs changed. This included street dance, zumba, aqua aerobics/swimming, yoga. The reality is that you may have 200 kids coming for an all year session that the teaching ratios already can't balance, never mind the demands of offering roller skating. I can just see the mumsnet complaints rolling in when their kid has broken an arm messing about on skates during our watch...

Hi OP someone needs to hire you to sort out PE, I bloody hated it in school and would have loved your suggestions!! As would countless schools in think. I think there should absolutely be a fitness option like Nordic walking and so on. I'd have really loved that and had a better relationship with PE 100%.

I'm quite sporty so loved PE. We had to wear a gum shield and pukka shinpads when playing hockey. Swimming was very popular. Our school had it's own pool so you could use that during lunch or after hours, as long as there was somebody on lifeguard duty. I also used to keep score for the cricket team (boys) - 15-year-old girls have other interests in that area!

I lived and helped out on the family farm so I was used to roughing it in all weathers so getting spattered in mud and battering each other on a hockey field wasn't a hardship.

My middle daughter went to a private school that had amazing facilities, a resident tennis coach and fitness instructors.

I think it's important that kids have some form of physical exercise so I'm not sure table tennis and walking round the block really cuts it.

I started the thread thinking that too. And I was an unsporty child that hated PE throughout school, but I was academic and in particular I was top maths student in my year.

But the maths teacher didn’t ridicule those that were struggling with maths and I often spent lesson time helping others when I had finished my own work, with teachers approval. Nobody that was good at PE was ever encouraged to help those that struggled. I think there is a difference.

And who’s paying for this OP?
Who’s paying for gun sessions, and proper yoga lessons etc?

They are PE teachers in a school, not personal trainers at a spa weekend.

And FWIW, many of those activities are already included.

YABU - it’s an hour of exercise a couple of times a week. Just get on with it.

That’s sad. Two of my three boys are excellent athletes and always, willingly, help others who need it, when given the opportunity. But then they were raised correctly to do so.