Problem with amount of sport on the timetable

[ItsRainingOutside]

My DD has just had her first day at her new senior school. She is a very tall and muscular girl who has never enjoyed sport with a high intensity of running requiring stamina. She loves all water sports and athletics which don't involve running (hammer throw, discus etc). She was on the netball team at her primary school and really liked it.

There are 6 hours of games/PE on the timetable and she had her first experience of hockey today which she hated as the teacher criticised her lack of ability in it (she's never actually played before). She's been told they have cross country on Monday and she is living in fear. She's very upset.

The girls have also been told they will play for a team of some description and will be expected to train on a Saturday morning when DD already has rowing club. Saturday school isn't compulsary unless you're on a sports team.

I really don't know whether to raise the problem with her tutor now or wait and see what happens and hope she learns to like the sport more?

I think on Monday she will have a very heavy period, to the point of being ememic and will not be able to do any sport.

In fact it's probably caused her to vomit this morning and you are worried about the migraine she sometimes gets along with them.

You get what you pay for.

I am loling a bit at the tall muscular girl that doesn't want to do any sport that she isn't good at doesn't like though. I bet the short fat kid that is a maths nerd has way more problems.

They'll fawn all over her to let her carry on with rowing training on a sat am, no need to fuss. Is she not required to do a fair amount of running training to build her stamina for that? Most of the rowers I know spend as much time slogging on the trails as they do in the gym.

Ah, the trials of pe. At least it's a girls school and the boys aren't just watching her breasts.

"Agree with fivecandles' post below - "But then teachers like this may never realize the impact their attitude is having."

Then maybe someone should tell them?"

Or perhaps not yet According to OP, the was her DD's very first day in this school and her first go at hockey. There will be a huge kaleidoscope of first impressions and no way (yet) to tell what are the actual priorities of the school and PE department, nor whether first impression is right.

I think it is vital to wait at minimum a few weeks, and better until after half term, and find out what is really going on, based on more evidence and a bit of time to think about how it all fits together.

Deal with Saturdays on the basis of actual logistics. You may find the picture is less absolute than your DD is reporting I so far. And I suspect the "dread" of cross country on Monday is mor fear of going outside her comfort zone than anything beastly in the PE department. And of course expecting to find something difficult in front of you new peer group is daunting.

I think your job now is to be a soothing presence, to help her be a good loser or "also ran", and to communicate about every aspect of how she is settling in. It's an important time for sorting out the peer group / social side of school. I would make sure you are careful to ensure you are alert to everything/anything, not focus on issues from one PE lesson, which might not prove important at all.

As an asthmatic 11 year old, finally on medication which kept it under some control, I joined a private girls' boarding school with high quality sport in Year 8 (ie I had already missed a year of teaching in all the school's main sports).

In primary, and even as a small child, I had been unable to take a full part in PE due to asthma, to the extent that I had never really learned to run efficiently.

I still remember being absolutely the worst in EVERY sport and EVERY PE lesson. In athletics, I finished the 800 metres in longer than it took most people to finish the mile. I had compulsory team practice, but never made any team, ever.

It was a very useful corrective to being very able academically, in being genuinely terrible at something that my peers could do much more easily. Not something to complain about, a very, very useful life lesson to learn.

The logistics of saturdays - of course, discuss that. But that your daughter doesn't like doing sports she is bad at - no. She is obviously very very good at some things, so allow her the educational value of being not so good at others.

IME of a variety of independent schools most concentrate on a main sport a term girls hockey/netball and the vice versa next term rounders in the summer. Other sports maybe offered; tennis rowing etc but a lot depends on the size of the school and its facilities.
Many independent schools especially boarding schools are stuffed with games hating children coming up with a whole raft of reasons why they shouldn't stand on the rugby pith in February in gale force weather with the rain pissing down. Tutors HM's matrons the health centre and pe teachers have heard them all and permission to be "off games" is grante only after considerable thought and monitored carefully.
What never ceases to amaze me is that parents stump up huge amounts of money (frequently £30 000+) and never enquire if there is a golf course on site for their golf mad rugby hating son and then complain when their DS has to spend 5 afternoons on a rugby pitch in all weathers and that the nearest golf course is 100 miles away!
OP I doubt the school will make that much of a concession for your daughter because they will use the true but irritating commejt "once we let one ....." I suspect she'll just have to get on with it why don't you speak to another parent of an older child and try and find out what the expectations are re teams Saturday morning etc and also what next terms main sport is. My DS hates X country but has resigned himself to the inevitble as some have already said a useful life lesson.

Ah, yes, the predictable stereotyping of female PE teachers.

Has the OP gone off to research the school's web site??