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AIBU?

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Original poster

YouTube as part of PE lesson

36 replies

HowDoYouSpellThat · 19/12/2025 09:58

Hi everyone, hoping to get a bit of insight here. My 6-year-old came home yesterday and said something that caught me off guard: he started telling me about “the YouTube advert we saw in PE.” It turns out that during his PE lesson, they watched YouTube videos of characters like Mario and Sonic and copied what they saw on screen as part of the activity.

Now, I’m all for using videos as a learning aid. I know they can be really engaging and fun for the kids, and it’s not that I think it’s inherently bad. But what surprised me was the idea that they’re just watching standard YouTube with ads in a school setting. It made me wonder about whether this is the norm and if I’m being unreasonable to feel a bit uneasy about it.

I guess my concerns are just around screen time and whether the content is properly vetted. If they were using an educational platform or pre-approved videos, I’d probably feel a bit more comfortable. But knowing it’s just YouTube with ads popping up makes me a bit wary.

So, AIBU to be a bit concerned about this, or is this just a totally normal part of modern PE lessons? I’m genuinely open to hearing different viewpoints to see if I’m just overthinking it. Thanks so much!

OP posts:
ChicNewt · 20/12/2025 19:41

I'm a secondary teacher and we just have standard YouTube with ads. I try to play them beforehand so as to not show them to the class but sometimes they're on the middle of a clip!

TootsMaHoots · 20/12/2025 19:52

Avantiagain · 19/12/2025 10:51

"You know, there was a time when teachers managed without resorting to screens in bad weather."

Yes we didn't do PE. We sat in the classroom colouring in.

There was a time when we didn’t have thirty children with no other adult and where people bothered to bring their children up so that they were toilet trained and had an attention span and their fingers were not useless stumps because they had threaded, baked and completed puzzles at home instead of going on iPads so they could play snakes and ladders or chess at lunchtime.

There was a time when we had coloured pencils to spare and paper for the photo copier.

Whenasuitcasejustwontdo · 20/12/2025 19:53

We can’t use an adblocker, for
some reason it can interfere with SIMS. However, I put a - between the t and u, ie yout-ube in the address bar and it can take out the adverts.

Martymcfly24 · 20/12/2025 19:57

Aibu my child came home wet after PE and is now sick.
Aibu my child didn't get any pe at all today...
And so on..

No matter what we do a parent will find fault with.
My class love Coach Corey Martin. The Grinch one was a big hit this week.

Everleigh13 · 20/12/2025 20:00

They do this at my daughter’s school. I don’t mind it. She enjoys the videos and it keeps them active.

Jagrap · 20/12/2025 20:02

We used YouTube for all our assembly music and sometimes for the odd lesson (as in showing a 2 minute clip of something) in other subjects. There are ads but normally for stuff like Grammarly. I try to mute them generally. Not a chance school would pay for Premium. Music for assemblies from companies like Out of the Ark is just unaffordable for small primaries.

Vgbeat · 20/12/2025 20:10

It will be cosmic yoga which are great little videos for warm ups etc. I do pay for you tube premium so I don't worry about ads in class but its also costing me over a hundred pounds a year for it.

HopingForTheBest25 · 20/12/2025 21:52

OMG, the stuff parents moan about! Seeing a 30 second advert won't harm your child!

If my dc were in school now, I'd be worrying more about class sizes and not having enough TAs to support all the kids who have additional needs. YouTube adverts wouldn't even cross my mind!

Original poster
HowDoYouSpellThat · 21/12/2025 18:23

Interesting perspectives from everyone, especially from the teachers. Sounds like resources are very sparse and staff morale seems low.
Thanks for sharing.

As I said before, I'm not planning on doing anything about it. I just wondered how others would feel about this and if it was unreasonable to feel uneasy about my kids watching YouTube ads during school time.

We are pretty low tech at home.. no ipads or telly. We have a projector which we set up to watch movies so there is some 'screen' time I guess but it feels quite measured and communal.

I did ask if it was cosmic kids yoga and kid said it wasn't that. It was something with sonic and Mario racing, I think more like a brain break video.

I suppose showing that YouTube can be used for positive things like exercise videos is good.

OP posts:
User79853257976 · 21/12/2025 18:28

HowDoYouSpellThat · 19/12/2025 09:58

Hi everyone, hoping to get a bit of insight here. My 6-year-old came home yesterday and said something that caught me off guard: he started telling me about “the YouTube advert we saw in PE.” It turns out that during his PE lesson, they watched YouTube videos of characters like Mario and Sonic and copied what they saw on screen as part of the activity.

Now, I’m all for using videos as a learning aid. I know they can be really engaging and fun for the kids, and it’s not that I think it’s inherently bad. But what surprised me was the idea that they’re just watching standard YouTube with ads in a school setting. It made me wonder about whether this is the norm and if I’m being unreasonable to feel a bit uneasy about it.

I guess my concerns are just around screen time and whether the content is properly vetted. If they were using an educational platform or pre-approved videos, I’d probably feel a bit more comfortable. But knowing it’s just YouTube with ads popping up makes me a bit wary.

So, AIBU to be a bit concerned about this, or is this just a totally normal part of modern PE lessons? I’m genuinely open to hearing different viewpoints to see if I’m just overthinking it. Thanks so much!

It was probably meant to be outdoor PE and it was raining heavily. The hall might have been in use and they had to improvise.

Jagrap · 21/12/2025 19:26

My morale is great and I too allow my own children very, very little screen time. We just have very little money as a school to pay for things like YouTube premium, which even as a single user is £13 a month.

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