To think that school PE lessons for year 7s shouldn't be a lesson on 'headers' given the FA moves to eliminate them for this age group

[northerngoldilocks]

DS came home from school today to say that PE was a lesson on 'headers' as they're an important part of playing football. He's in year 7.

The FA are trialing no headers for this age group in matches so I don't understand why a school PE lesson (not even football squad training) would ever need to include headers. There have been several studies which whilst stopping short of suggesting headers are banned, have clearly made links with neurocognative impairment, so to have year 7s doing a lesson headers feels bizarre. Is this normal in year 7?

www.thefa.com/news/2021/jul/28/20210728-new-heading-guidance-published

I know next-to-nothing about football but was a rugby player. In my experience, people always kicked off about full-contact rugby being dangerous for young children when the research and evidence showed that, in reality, it was far more dangerous to allow people to continue non-contact until they were bigger and then more/worse injuries were sustained because people were being tackled with more force and from a greater height when people were in their inexperienced stage (i.e. a 10yo who doesn't know how to tackle is much less dangerous than an 18yo who doesn't know how to tackle). In rugby, tackling itself isn't dangerous - tackling incorrectly is. So, the quicker you learn to tackle properly, the safer the sport is.

As I said, I know nothing of football and whether or not it's relevant to this case but, maybe, that same principle applies here? Could it be that it's safer to learn how to do it safely than to let them do it unsafely?

The guidance I linked to shows how they're trying to eliminate it from u12s and then introduce it through training in a v restricted fashion, so max of 10 per session.

Given it was a PE lesson rather than squad training the risk / reward pay off feels odd. I think that the consensus is that there isn't really a way to 'head safely' it's the hitting the head on the ball that's the issue.

I can see that for rugby there is an argument about learning to tackle and fall safely but it's the brain impact of heading that's particularly concerning

It's probably part of an age old programme of study followed without joined up thinking. I'd be asking the school about this, for sure.

Surely it would depend on the ball? I'd agree though, a practise session on headers with a full sized/weight ball does seem to go against the guidance and research.

Agree, they’re out of date! Junior prem league teams don’t allow headers either. I’d be making a complaint!

Just in case anyone comes across this thread, I did email in with links to the FA guidance. School reacted well to it, called up, said the schools FA hadn't made them aware but that they would reassess the curriculum and were thankful that I'd taken the time to write and provide all the back up detail.

I've also emailed the English schools FA to ask why their guidance doesn't align with the FA but haven't heard back yet.

Hoping this isn't meaning I've only pushed it back by 12 months but at least it's a start for us. Don't really send him to school to be made more stupid!