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?

Can anyone point me to any studies that support the notion that girls shouldn't play contact sports? Can't seem to find anything that suggests a physical barrier, just cultural hangups and prejudice.

My kids grew up in New Zealand.

DS and DD played rugby in mixed sex club teams until they were 12. When they were in y7 and y8 they also played in mixed school tournaments. There was also a girls only tournament. From y9 onwards, they both played for schools in single sex teams. Our province doesn't have club rugby for 13-18 year olds, other provinces do. DD had to be dispensated to play for an all girls school because her school couldn't field a team at u15 or u18 level.

My DS played in a mixed sex touch rugby team.

The school did have a couple of mixed netball teams but it was hard to find competition- most of the boys were stolen from the basketball team.

New Zealand and Australia both have men's netball teams. The Silver Ferns often play against the men's team to train for international matches. Silver Ferns usually lose to the men...

Football/soccer is another that, in the US at least, is often considered a "girls sport" (although slightly more boys play than girls).

Restrictions on a sex's access to sport are almost always cultural. I can't actually think of an exception.

I went to a not so nice state school in the 80s and 90s it was all girls and we did all sports.

Netball, tennis, rugby, hockey, cross country and we had a pool so the dreaded swimming and showers. Complete with Pervy female PE teachers.

I loved the fact we got to do everything it really set me up for understanding when I left my all girls bubble how bloody sexist the world was, we also did woodwork, DT etc and not just the needlework.

Our local boys school played hockey and netball, so we used to meet up for mixed matches.

If DD was my daughter and I was paying for her school I would 100% expect her to be playing all sports, regardless of her gender.

I'd be the mum kicking up a stink about how dated and sexist the approach to sports is, we don't have enough sports women as it is.

Do they keep the girls away from the free weights in the gym as well?

So yes OP id be pissed off and it snot even a question I would have asked at enrolling I would have assumed all sports were for all students.

It's a private school and yes they can do sports on rotation and do everything. That's what the OP signed up for.

If they can find time to do it with boys, they can find time to do it with girls, unless of course they think girls are less than and so not worth as much time or effort.

The problem is when kids start ‘trying out’ more sports, they spend less time on the ones they compete in and they do badly at fixtures.

It’s how private schools work and why some kids get scholarships. Just sign her up for a club. I would complain if my daughter was made to do rugby!

I don't think that's so true anymore (I live in the USA) but I do think it's regional. High school football isn't as dominant here. What my state is known for is lacrosse.

And England's women's rugby team is #1 ranked! Of course girls should get a chance. Touch rugby is a good start to learn the game (though here, again, university teams and above definitely tackle. My eldest's university has women's rugby and they hit hard.)

CTE and concussions are a big topic here, so much so that there's a specialist concussion programme at the University of Pittsburgh that's supposedly the best in the world. (I'm not usually a "rah American healthcare is the best" person by the way but when your sports medicine department is partly funded by the Steelers and the Penguins, and some very famous people travelled there from other countries, I have to think there might be something to it!) Interestingly they think ice hockey and American football may be worse than rugby because all the safety equipment encourages players to hit harder. Players have been donating their brains to research after they die, and the autopsy findings are horrifying. I wouldn't have let my children play American football.

But it would mean changing a rotation from netball or hockey, to rugby. In reality, the majority of girls would prefer to play netball or hockey and these will be the sports they can find opposing, girls teams for. Plus I think you’d get far more parent complaints if they suddenly announced all girls were going to be dropping netball or hockey for a term to play rugby. It’s a small school - 80 in the year. You need to field a squad of c.20 for rugby, so half the girls in the year (assuming a 50/50 split) would need to be up for playing rugby.

Lots of boys are quite interested in netball, but that would be easily resolved by playing Korfball (which plays with mixed teams) or basketball.

How Sport works at DDs school (State).
Half the year (about 100 children) have PE at a time. Split into boys and girls, then halved into two groups.
Each group does each sport for about 5 weeks, 2 lessons a week. The sports vary a lot, but they do the same ones, just at different times. Netball, basketball, cricket, athletics, fitness circuits, yoga, badminton, rugby, tennis, football, hockey, table tennis... (it varies according to weather and access to gyms, they can't do inside sports during GCSEs for example). Its about trying g different sports.

Then if they further interest, they join a club after school.

They do have a Girls rugby team. Its actually run by an English teacher who herself plays, rather than a PE teacher.

In lessons, they don't do direct contact... but do use tackle bags. Its apparently a very popular lesson even with non sporty girls as they can let go a bit!

My main issue with school rugby is the safety concerns from having non specialist coaches.

A lot of the time it's based on which competitions they enter. They'll often prioritise - particularly top set - around what the schedule is. If they haven't entered any girls rugby competitions they may not prioritise it. It's all around league tables. Sports too.

Yanbu. Our daughter at a state school played the same sports as boys (with girls, not mixed) she enjoyed rugby. It's certainly worth saying to the school that it's disappointing she isn't able to try it. Having said that I've always told my kids that school can't give them all the experiences they want so they have to look elsewhere sometimes. My daughter did drama outside school because it wasn't provided in school. As a pp suggested, maybe look to a rugby club for somewhere she can try it out.

Go and read the OP again .... I would imagine there's a lot more boys playing hockey and girls playing football than there are either sailing or horse riding

Seems stupid. There are loads of girls / women’s rugby teams. YANBU at all.

Are their sports for girls they prevent boys doing?

Have you watched the Olympics? Male gymnasts and hockey players, women footballers, it's just crazy!

Rugby often results in quite serious injuries for boys, but somehow it’s alright for them to play if they want 🙄.

Dear lord it’s 2025 and girls’ choices are still being constrained by assumptions about their fragility.

I did (contact) rugby at school in the nineties. I wasn't that keen myself but there were enough that were to make a team and they played in a north west school girls league. So I think it's just prejudice that says "oh girls must hate it". Girls that like sport will give rugby a go, girls who are put off by sport probably don't really like anything. In my case it was periods, poor toilet and changing facilities and impractical uniform that were the main barriers. I did enjoy hockey, tennis and basketball though.

I find the set-up you describe (which based on the responses seems typical for the UK?) a bit odd: getting kids to specialise and compete in specific sports through school, and if they want to try something else they need to join a club, even though they might realise after 3 sessions they don't actually enjoy it.

Where I am from it is the exact opposite: PE is for trying out a broad range of sports, and if there is a specific one you enjoy, you join a club and compete that way against other kids.

It meant that all kids did all sports in PE, from rugby to dance/aerobics.

What a sexist load of you know what. No one is saying that there are not differences in the physical make up between boys and girls. But they should all have the opportunity of equal access to whichever sports they want to play (played all girls and all boys for parity). Not be dictated by whether the sport itself is deemed a “boy” or “girl sport” which btw is a load of rubbish.

OP - I would be fuming. We are in 2025 for goodness sake. Why on earth should any student whatever sex not be able to have the opportunity to play whatever sport they have an interest in. A girl may not want to play rugby, and a boy may not want to play netball, that’s fine, but they should have the opportunity to if they want. It’s not rocket science.

Or just preference? Can't people accept that girls mostly prefer not to play contact sports? Because we're different to mention and prefer different things?
But scientific evidence is not hard to find. Literally line 1 of Google results:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11483826/#:~:text=The%20results%20of%20this%20review%20indicated%20that%20women%20had%20a,more%20and%20worse%20symptoms%20afterward.

Because it's bullshit. The biggest sport in the UK is boys football. The second biggest sport is girls football. So the biggest sport for both boys and girls is a contact sport.

I disagree on your first point. Both boys and girls have played soccer in the US for decades and it isn't considered a single sex sport where I grew up in Southern California at all. I'm surprised that anyone would think it was.

But sex restriction to sport is definitely cultural. The only 'girls' sport when I grew up was softball (which is funny because it is commonly played by men and women in co-ed teams). The boys only sports are baseball and football (but occasionally there are girls on the 🏈 football team). Otherwise there were boys and girls teams for everything else and some co-ed teams for smaller sports (golf, surfing, cheerleading, dance, etc).

Title IX has increased girls/young women's participation in sports and increased the amount of viable teams/activities. Before it was definitely more segregated and girls were often lucky if they were offered any sports at all.

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.

What a load of utter clap trap.
I take it you don't follow sport ?

The reality is that a majority of girls won’t want to do rugby and a majority of boys won’t want to do netball.