Boys and girls doing different sports in PE

[Notemma]

DD is in Y7 at a small Independent school, 80 kids per year. The whole year does PE at the same time and it’s split into boys/girls then a top set boys and top set girls, bottom set boys and bottom set girls.
DD is quite sporty, does lots of athletics outside of school. At school they do 6 sports over the year Cross Country, Swimming & Athletics every year. Then on the school website it says they will rotate through “Rugby, netball, volleyball, tennis, badminton, basketball, hockey and football”. DD has been looking forward to trying rugby, so decided to ask her teacher when they would be doing it and she was told girls don’t do rugby. DD was quite upset when she got home as she had been looking forward to it.
I decided to call the school and clarify, I was told that boys don’t do netball or hockey and the girls don’t do rugby.

AIBU to think it’s unacceptable to not offer all sports to all children? I don’t mind the classes being separated by sex and ability but I think every class should do the same sports. Should I complain?

Yabu. Females, as a cohort, have more delicate neck fibres etc and are more prone to injury due to less dense bones/muscles. I do not want my girls playing rugby nor heading footballs. Luckily they don't want to either. There are plenty of team sports available that don't result in injuries. Girls who want to play rugby exist and that's fine but are outliers so outside of school would be the option.

Yes why not complain? When I was at school pupils did different sports depending on their sex. At my children's school they all do the same. So girls do football and rugby, boys do netball etc.

As a girl I would have been incredibly grateful to have been spared rugby. There are plenty of surveys done to engage girls in sport and the recurring feedback is they prefer individual sports and non contact sports.

We can't pretend there are no physical differences between boys and girls, and boys do prefer contact sports overall. That said, they could split the children according to preference rather than aex so all get to try the sport of their choice. But then they'd run into trouble with for instance just one girl selecting rugby etc... they can't win.

it's a demand thing isn't it - as well as safety I imagine
many more girls would prefer netball over rugby and it wouldn't be safe for rugby preferring girls to play with the boys (which I am sure you are not arguing for)
If rugby is your dd's sport then try a local club outside school

In my experience, games lessons are based on what competitive matches are available locally - ie what other local independent schools play.
Could they offer it as an extra-curricular if enough girls are interested?

It will be down to popularity. Most girls won't want to do contact rugby, most boys won't want to do netball. Totally fair enough.

Your daughter should try a local rugby club. They often struggle to find enough players for the girl's teams.

I'd imagine overall more girls would prefer to not do rugby than the number of girls that would so they don't offer it. Our school offered rugby for boys and hockey for girls for example. Plenty of outside sport clubs for girls who do want to try other sports. Also schools can't offer all sports, just not the time or capacity I guess

I don't know how this is still allowed, even in state schools as well. It smacks of the days where girls had to do sewing and home economics because those were "girl subjects" while boys had to do woodwork and metalwork. I'd be all for kids being able to choose from a range of sports, and then if girls don't want to do rugby fair enough. But there should be an equality of opportunity. You can just do the tag rugby version if there are concerns about contact.

Is it also a case of them focusing on sports they can compete against other schools in?

I understand not mixing boys and girls, I’m a big fan of this (I think girls are more likely to put effort in without the boys teasing).

However the have an inspirational athletes board in the PE department and one of them is Ilona Maher, it seems odd to have her as an inspirational athlete but not let girls try Rugby.
Equally I don’t understand boys not doing Hockey or Netball.

If it is just popularity they should scrap cross county and swimming as those don’t seem popular at all!

Girls can perfectly well play touch Rugby. Boys not playing hockey is a bit strange. This sounds to me as though the school PE rota has set into a slightly fossilised patter, Girls do this, boys do that.
Some of this will be down to timetabling, one term Rugby, one football, one cricket. I'd expect this lot to move into the 21st century. Minority sports should at least be available in clubs.
Give them a bit of a shake, OP.

The competitive teams don’t have any influence on the PE lessons, they have to go to training after school/lunch time for these and they only offer Hockey, Netball, Football and Rugby for competing (then compete in the inter school cross country and athletics competitions).

YANBU. I remember wanting to play rugby and cricket in school (1990s), and being annoyed that we weren’t able to. It was also made abundantly clear that the school only valued the boys’ sports teams, and not the girls’.

I get your point @Notemma but I don’t think it’s the same as the woodwork/home economics split as we are talking about a contact sport. My worry would be they end up mixing sexes on the same team to get enough numbers (especially as a small school) and then it will be dominated by the males with the females at risk of real harm.

We lived in Australia where netball is huge - when the teams were mixed male and female, it was a disaster for all the reasons why TW/males shouldn’t be competing against women.

Agree with others that if she really fancies rugby, she should try an actual out of school team.

Have you not heard all the arguments against men competing as women in female sports? If sports are segregated for female competitors and male competitors it makes perfect sense that the sports themselves are segregated.

Most sports are "obviously" primarily aimed at one sex or the other. Football, rugby, cricket, darts, snooker are men's sports. Netball, hockey, diving, volleyball and gymnastics are women's sports. There are a few sports like horse racing or sailing which can be done by either of course.

Trust me. Year 7 boys really, really don't want to be playing netball.

Well this is utter bollocks

I actually think the opposite will happen.

The farce of TWAW in the past decade has led to lots of interesting research. And the research has shown that physical differences between male and female post puberty extend way way beyond height and size.

To the extent that lots of the sports men play, and the way they play them, aren't suitable for the female body.

We aren't the same, our bodies certainly aren't, so sports should reflect that.

Satire, I hope?

boys/men do play hockey in the US and Canada - so it's a cultural thing here and probably partly due to the overwhelming dominance of football
Also men/boys play basketball in US / Canada too - and that is similar to Netball - so again cultural.
I also can't agree sewing /home economics is the same as making girls play rugby - and what's wrong with sewing and netball - equally good activities as the boys activities. Sewing arguably much more useful in life than metalwork

It is, isn’t it. By my calculations there are more Olympic medals for gymnastics for men than women.

Have you done any research at all before contributing to this thread @worriedmumnov2024 ?

I am a PE teacher with nearly
20 years experience 😂😂😂

Weren't there medals won in men's hockey, diving and gymnastics at the Olympics? Not sure about volleyball. You think these sports are for primarily for girls? Bizarre

As am I @worriedmumnov2024 . And I'm genuinely amazed that you are if you don't know about XX bodies and how they respond to contact.