AIBU to expect team sports to be explained in schools

[Shiningmediocrity]

I’m Gen X, so it was pretty standard for PE teachers to not explain the rules of team games. DC has started secondary school and played netball for the first time. I asked how it went and said how strange it was looking back that we were never told the rules of sports we played. She said they weren’t told any either! AIBU to think that this would have changed by now? Lighthearted thread btw.

If they only just started they are probably not playing matches as such just practicing passing, positions, defence. The rules will come in when they form teams.

They probably don't! I spent at least 3 years "playing" netball without having a clue about what any of the actual rules were or who I was supposed to pass to and when, or what any of the different roles were, basically no instruction than "SWIVEL" being bellowed when you got the ball (because the previous instruction was "DONT MOVE WHEN YOU HAVE THE BALL" so I just stood there like we were playing musical statues!"

If you’ve ever watched “The Apprentice”, there’s always an episode where teams are picked. It reminds me of the ritual humiliation in PE. I really really hope this has changed.

Went to a grammar school... The teachers spent a lot of time explaining the rules 😏 I just wanted to go out and whack some balls!

Our school did that 30 years ago. We had PE and Games

PE was a real mixture of things, step aerobics, swimming, trampolining, dance, yoga, circuits but no team/ball/racket sports

Games was Hockey/Netball in the winter, Rounders, Tennis and Athletics in the summer.

I had no idea. I still have no idea of the rules of netball, basketball, hockey, football, cricket or rounders and I was expected to play all of them.
Never had any rules explained to us during Games (what we called PE) when I was at school in the 90s/early 2000s. I remember when we moved I went to a new primary school, first day I had games, we played rounders. I threw the bat down (as was the rule at my previous school) and I got bollocked for “being a danger”. Next school I went to I got shouted at for taking the bat with me!! MAKE UP YOUR MINDS!!

@ToffeePennie yes the run with the bat or drop the bat was always bloody different depending on which teacher you had or school you were playing against in the schools tournament 😂

Flashback to year 7 or 8, when my PE teacher said Natsku, I want you on the cross country team, you'll be competing in a race next week (or something like that) and so I went in the school minibus to some really fancy girls school where they wore tartan skirts and ran a cross country race for the first time. I was also made to do discus on sports day despite never trying it before, and everyone else got a proper cone to mark where their discus landed and I got a bloody cardboard box!

This definitely doesn't mirror my or my children's experience of learning how to play hockey/netball/tennis. That's not a lesson surely? What exactly are teachers being paid for if they just say "go play hockey" and leave the kids to it??

One of my children who absolutely hates team games says the being yelled at by peers for doing it wrong was pretty common though!

Completely agree. When I went to senior school, age 11, I had never played hockey before so was thrown in the deep end. Although having played football in the years leading up to that helped in knowing the basics about marking, positions etc, and I ended up playing for the school's U12A team that year. What I found puzzling though was at prize day when the star player, who had played hockey through her prep school years, won "Most improved player". I thought that in my case, coming from zero hockey to the first team was a pretty decent improvement!

It seems I'm unusual in that our PE department were quite fixed on our learning and following the rules!

I ended up thinking the opposite tbh - people freely engaged with gym equipment and fun low-rules games like dodgeball, but skived proper lessons. I thought it made more sense to just had people enthusiastically moving.

They will probably stream or it's difficult to have lessons suitable for everyone. DS's school has 5 sets:

Sporty boys
Sporty girls
Average boys
Average girls
Mixed group of the rest

Occasionally they ask if anyone feels that they're in the wrong group. At which point, half the boys in the mixed group claim they should be in the top one.

Same. My daughter was also told the rules when she did sports in PE in the last decade.

@Shiningmediocrity Are you sure they actually played a game of netball? What you can and cannot do must have been explained or it’s just practice. It’s early in the term. So more about skills and less about rules?

We were taught rules of sports because the school had competitive teams who played against other schools. My DDs knew rules too.

This thread is so cathartic.
I honestly thought the reason I'd been so crap at PE, and felt like I didn't know what was going on was on me. I just assumed I was too thick, and must have missed the instructions somewhere. It was a mystery though, because mostly I managed instructions in the classroom.

I also thought I was incapable of hitting the shuttlecock in badminton. Several years of (occasional) badminton in school just swiping about uselessly. And then after I left was playing casually with someone on a beach (having said I couldn't play) and within about half an hour they'd taught me how to hold a rally!!

@terrifiedgran How bizarre. I just have poor hand/eye coordination and find hitting a ball very difficult. With badminton it’s mostly self taught and no teaching would help me. Most people who can hit a ball, can hit a ball.

We were never taught how to play any team games. I found it really annoying!!

It was a timing thing. I had no idea I was always swinging too early.
Someone pointing this out, and standing behind me helping me for 10 minutes sorted this out.
I'm not entering the olympics anytime soon, but I enjoy a knock about and can manage rallies of 20 plus shots.

Agree, especially younger children who might not think to look them up.

Though if the children are followers of certain men's Premier League football teams, they might know different rules.

@MeetMeOnTheCorner they were given colours and told to stand at various places on the court and then just play.

Really? I was at school in the 90s and we were taught the basics at the beginning of the season and then on the couple of occasions a year when it was so wet that they actually cancelled games, they became lessons about the rules.

Seven bloody years of lacrosse and the only rule I learned was "don't whack the opposition with your stick (unless you can make it look like an accident)".

@Shiningmediocrity Colours? Not bibs with positions? Who refereed? So GA and GS didn’t know where they couldn’t go? Not that it’s rocket science!

It might as well be if no one tells you! I hadn’t got a clue how to play netball when I went to secondary school. Nothing was explained. I was constantly yelled at for ‘doing it wrong’ and hated every minute of it.

Exactly what happened to me! Over 30 years later and I still couldn't tell you a single rule.