to be annoyed that my 8yr old ds never seems to do PE at school?

[27yorkshiregirl]

It always seems to be cancelled for some reason or other. Most recent reason being they cant use the hall as other children are rehersing for the xmas play.A few weeks ago they couldnt do PE because the hall was being used for an adult PE lesson!! Isnt school for children?? And more importantly, are all these adults who are doing PE in my childs school CRB checked?? This is annoying for me because my son is very athletic and really enjoys PE. This happened alot in his last class too. Isnt PE a mandatory part of the national curriculum?? And why is it always PE that suffers so that this other stuff can go on? I would react in the same way if he was missing maths on a daily basis. Do i put in a complaint?

I would. PE for a designated amount of time is statutory in schools.
Ask them for their PE policy, ask how much time the school has to give each child by law. Point out that after-school clubs don't count, ask how they will make up the time already lost...
Indoor PE suffers because it occupies the big space in school that you need for rehearsals.

Thanks, and i agree it does take up alot of space, but i think this is where planning comes in. The school knows at the start of the year they will need to do rehersal so should plan and prepare for it. Rehersals only take up a small amount of the day so PE should fit in as well. Im starting to think maybe the teachers are not keen on PE!!! And for my child to miss out, so an adult PE lesson given by some outside company can take place!! Thats annoying!

the adults dont need to be crb checked unless being left alone with children. it's a bit ott to demand that all adults coming into a school are checked.

Actually although thta is strictly the case ,in practice Ofsted do expect everyone to be either CRB checked or and under the new scheme they will expect everyone to be checked.It is making life very difficult

I would ask the teacher and see if you can guage whether she is behind it or whether it is out of her control. If it's out of her control definitely ask to see the head about it. The teacher is probably equally annoyed about not being able to use the hall and would love someone to tackle the head about it. At our school the teachers are driven mad by three productions a year which amount to at least a full term a year putting the hall out of action. We all know it's not fair on the children but our objections are ignored because parents want plays and it looks good for Ofsted. Why does every child have to be in a play once a year?!

Were the adults from outside school or were they staff who were training? We regularly get together with other schools to share the cost of training, staff go to whichever school is hosting... in which case, all the people there would be CRB checked.

A lot of things get disrupted around Christmas because of rehearsals, carol concerts etc. If they're missing PE regularly though, I would have a word with the teacher as caen says.

Parent volunteers shouldnt be left alone with children but are CRB checked. I regularly go into school as an assessor and are never alone with children but as i come into direct contact with children, most schools, for good practice will not let me in without seeing my CRB check. Personally, im not a big fan of CRB checks as they are only as good as the day they are printed. The CRB check wasnt really the issue here anyway!!

Im really not sure who the other adults were or where they were from. I think my best bet is to firstly speak to the class teacher as u suggested.

To digress a little... have you thought about an athletics club outside school? My DC's go to a running club and they love it.
( I don't mean instead of school PE though...more as club it sounds like he'd really enjoy).)

YANBU. My dd used to do two periods of PE a week, this year it is down to one. She is like dolly daydream but she did notice. The head says it's because there has been an increase in the number of classes at the school. HTF can one class (who are only there half days) mean my dd and her peers miss out like this.

Timetabling for the hall is very difficult especially when productions are under way. Ask them why the children can't bring in trackies or similar and have PE activities outside. That'll soon have them finding a window when the hall is not being used

kreecher - the minimum period for PE activities per week is 2 hours I think. It may be that the school are cramming it into 1 session if that is allowed. Although the chidren will be exhausted so that can't be right!

I don't understand why they have to be indoors ? We did sport outside in the winter, regardless of the weather (unless it was tipping it down). Apparently it "toughened" us up...

They are supposed to have 1 indoor session and 1 outdoor session but at the moment they are not having either. He does do lots of out of school activities like golf and dancing so hes still getting exercise but even so, it still bothers me that school are not doing their bit.

2 hours a week for primary school age is just not enough, is it.

not really. Children need to opportunity to release energy. More so when the weather is like this and they dontg get to play out at break time. Theres so much hype about healthy eating in schools at the moment, which is great, but surely to be healthy our children need a mix of healthy eating AND exercise.

Someone said something on a packed lunch thread that really chimed with me.

That successive govts have sold off all the playing fields, PE has been reduced to hardly anything, and all the kids have got fat. So the response is to try and put them all on a low fat diet.

The whole thing is cock eyed.

Speaking from a slightly tubby personal perspective, it is much easier to feed your children healthy food, than it is to leap off the sofa and start running around. If they really want to see a change, they need to do the exercise at school. Forcing children to eat miserable low-cal food and then sit still all day every day is just so obviously the wrong thing to do. I mean, if they were running around the whole time, it wouldn't even matter if they did have chips every day. Our diets in the 70s were very high in sugar and fat and we were all thin as whippets. And I've got all my own teeth...

Very well put!!! Schools need to concentrate on finding the balance between both!!

And then possibly the poor mother that got told off for giving her child the heinous snack of cheese and water biscuits the other day would not have been in the situation she was - as an hour of PE would have burnt that off easily.

We had at least an hour a day when I was at school

Ha yes fibi it was the cheese n crackers thread where I read that nugget of wisdom.

We had to go out and play in all weathers as well, I remember. When did it all get so soft, and why?

Hocuspontas. We are in Switzerland so your rules don't apply to us. My dd is out in rain, fog and snow so I don't understand why they can't do their PE outside.

My children play out at home in all weather! doesnt do them any harm!!

I'm sure it does them loads of good yorkshiregirl!