School Sport - comments by our great leader

[flexybex]

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/aug/08/cameron-scraps-targets-school-sport

Another way to cut the wage bill! All teachers to take it in turns to take PE lessons!

Radio says that effectively Cameron is reinstituting the Schools Partnership thing with recent announcement? Is that true, is that what latest announcement means? I think SSP is what got DD really into sport in last 18months, so good news, if it's the same programme the Conservatives just axed.
Even though team sport isn't her thing, more like X-country & swimming. I think Athletics & Swimming are considered UK underperforming areas.(?)

Cameron is now saying that he cut the sports funding because schools were teaching things like Indian Dancing.

Setting aside the fact that Dance can be very physically demanding requiring stamina and co-ordination, which schools only taught Indian Dancing?

I bet there is a simple answer - none!

My school offers Dance GCSE. It's really popular, especially among girls who often get turned off from PE. I expect Dave would like to see that scrapped? Surely we should be trying to encourage exercise in the young, not merely the sports that Boris did at Eton.

Anyone who can dismiss the vast range of - incredibly demanding - Indian dance forms, from Kathakali to Bharatanatyam - as 'Indian dance' is a tosser. (Not, obviously, that one wanted proof that CallmeDave was a tosser before.)

I would have quite liked to do a dance GCSE. Mainstream sport made me shudder. (I am now a 49 year old health journalist who writes a fair bit about exercise and swims a mile three times a week, btw.)

Again from the BBC website: "On Saturday he said the national curriculum for primary schools in England would be rewritten with an explicit reference to competitive team sports."

Would that be the current one which is being phased out or the new one being introduced in 2014? Will academies have to comply?

I think it's those pesky soundbites again.

Anyway, doesn't the KS2 curriculum cover team sports and outdoor activities?

Honestly. You couldn't make it up.

Can I just say something. About the bollywood dance comments from our smart bottom Cameron. Dance IS IN THE CURRICULUM of key stage 1 and 2 because the government HAS INCLUDED IT IN THE CURRICULUM. He really doesn't have a bloddy clue. s'cuse the swaring, and the capitals, but this really pisses me off.

My DH is a teacher in primary, and last year he had to learn Salsa Dancing in our kitchen, watching videos on you tube, because he has to teach children various forms of dance. Knowing my DH, he would have been much happier taking the kids out in the fields to play cricket. But no, he has to teach them dance.

BECAUSE IT'S IN THE BLODDY CURRICULUM

At his (very multi-racial) school, they have a very active after school club where boys and girls do bollywood dancing. THey are brilliant. It's a fantastic exercise (I know, I've tried going to a lesson and couldn't keep up). The children even auditioned to be part of the olympic opening ceremony, and indeed some of his pupils were selected to be part of the opening ceremony, because they are good dancers.

By the way, teaching salsa was a challenge in many levels. The boys didn't want to hold hand with girls, and also some parents complained that the school was telling young girls to hold hand with boys. So DH ended up telling the girls to dance together and the boys to dance together. What a mess. BECAUSE IT'S IN THE CURRICULUM!!!

He is -

A Fucking Moron.

Don't think I'd back either Boris or Dave in the parent's race.

I thought it was pretty much agreed by everybody that children should be praised for effort, not necessarily winning, the idea being that they recognise that success comes from hard work. Therefore, I have no problem if all children are trained to play netball (although to be honest, a fair few would probably get more out of 'Indian Dance'). However, unless you have the time and facilities to support everybody, team sports at school generally come down to 7 people running around a field/court and everybody else hanging out by the goal posts having a chat.

Meanwhile, as others have said, what any of this has to do with the Olympics is anyone's guess. As some athletes have said (and should be common sense), although you can spot potential athletes at school, the training required to become an elite athlete goes way beyond anything offered in school (unless you are at Millfield or Eton - Although if Cameron is proposing that every school have it's own Olympic standard rowing lake and stabling facilities and maybe a 50 metre pool, that's fab.)

Britain muddled along with pretty much the same number of medals every year (until the disaster at Atlanta), and has made progress because of Lottery funding (thanks John Major!).

Also, re: teacher's helping with sport at independent schools, I agree this was in the 80's, but at my girl's independent school, (which was very sporty), the only staff who did sport were P.E teachers.

At my brother's independent school, non P.E teachers did take sport, but it was part of the job description - if you couldn't offer to coach a sport, it was unlikely that you would be offered a position. However, please remember that another part of their job description was "You will only be asked to teach pupils who have have passed exams to prove a certain level of ability when they enter the school, and we will also interview them and only pick children who we feel will fit the school's ethos. If you teach a sport, we will of course ensure that you do not lack any facilities."

Teachers at State and Independent schools do not do the same job.

One of then many things Cameron seems to not understand when he slags off the supposed 'all must have prizes mentality' and his obsession with team games is the concept of competing against yourself.

There have been quite a few occasions at this Olympics (and would be at any athletics meeting), where a competitor didn't finish in the top 3 but the competitor has achieved a PB (personal best) and this is considered worthy of celebrating.

I think it's those pesky soundbites again.

No it is making it up as he goes along and it all come out his elbow or is it his arse?

The Inferiorettes pointed out to me, when I was frothing at the idea of two hours of PE a day, that neither Boris nor Dave look as if they had to do it

Frothing sounds like good exercise to me. Is it a team sport`?

Yes, we all froth about Dave'n'Boris in the Inferiority Complex

Then my fellow-inmates departed for a week's t'ai chi, another activity the EtonBoyz would no doubt despise for being both forrin and non-competitive. And faintly, you know, gurly

Just to reinforce DC's commitment to school sport
www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/aug/14/school-sports-fields-government-olympics?CMP=twt_fd

Oh, Eliot School, selling paying fields to pay for buildings, is becoming an ARK academy in September.

Look at what they're disposing :
www.elliottschool.org.uk/_files/66D14D277842D144432DA00E5A121604.pdf

There seems to be a pattern with academies selling land. And the sad thing is that the schools will never ever get it back.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19291911

There's a separate thread somewhere about Wandsworth Council selling off Elliot school land after public consultation. The school is getting a new sports hall and all weather pitch, so it's sports facilities may well end up better than they were before, in terms of all-year accessibility.

Yeah edith I feel more clued up now because of that very informative thread.

Unfortunately all this competitive sports stuff is great . . . for kids who are good at sport, and therefore probably like it so much that they do it out of school anyway.

For those of us who (like me) are just a bit crap at sports, being forced into competitive sports for 12 years of education just deepens our loathing of sport and makes us vow to avoid it for the rest of our lives.

Schools need to offer sports that don't rely on people having long legs / great athletic ability to be good at them - more individual sports such as table tennis and cycling should be offered. Before you bemoan the practicalities of school cycling, I'll note that my local velodrome lends out bikes & use of the track to members of the public.

It's a bloody miracle that I've done any sport whatsoever since leaving school - all that PE lessons taught me was how to forge a good sick note!