Did you dislike PE? Do your kids dislike PE?

[chris1987]

I'm studying to be a PE teacher and I'm curious to know what people's views are on how PE has changed over the years. Do your kids enjoy or dread it? Why? How could it be better?

I hated it, DS loves it. He's not brilliant, but loves running around.

How could it be better? It's the prime place for bullying. Last one left when picking teams, ball thrown to cause injury, clothes hidden. It's cold, wet and downright fucking miserable. Don't make it more miserable for the ones who hate it by bollocking them for hating it, you'll make them hate it more.

I hated it - never being taught the basics like how to run, catch, throw meant I thought I was useless. At 40 I discovered that running was just something you needed to learn to do rather than just being able to do it, and I am so cross I spent so long thinking I couldn't.

DS doesn't dislike PE, but doesn't like football and is very aware that for all the team sports those who are good only get better as they get lots of opportunities to play and even the B team will never catch up.

My take away message is that those who aren't as good need more time working on their basic skills and playing, not less. And simple to follow instructions on the game would help too - ds has never had actual rules to follow which might help him actually know what the different positions in a match are supposed to do for instance

I never loved it, but didn't mind it once I got stuck in. DS and DH both enjoyed it, and we are all petty active now.

I think it is important to have as wide a range of activities as possible to appeal to all levels of ability and interest, ie some weights/gym work and/or dance classes, as well as competitive games, and decent changing facilities.

*pretty active

I hated it, my dd hates it. Ds doesn't (yet) but is still at primary. I'm a teacher and it baffles me that PE teachers often still seem largely able to get away with a level of elitism, and disdain for less able pupils, which would these days be totally unacceptable in other school subjects. I am sure not all PE teachers are like that, but when I was at school, many only seemed to take an interest in the sporty kids who were in teams. According to dd this still appears to be the case.

I think part of the problem is that PE teachers have often been competitive sportswomen/men and may find it hard to appreciate that many kids just aren't interested in competing, especially when they are up against the sporty types who they have no hope of competing with. Maybe PE lessons should be more about fitness and less about competitive sport? But then I suppose we risk not getting future top sports people into their sports.

I hated PE. It was a series of humiliating failures. I haven't taken part in sport since I left school, and I don't feel like I would ever like to.

One of my children is similarly rubbish at sport, but they've never dreaded PE - it seems that the less sporty children are now encouraged to take part in basic general fitness rather than team games and skilled activities. There's a chance for them to feel like they're making progress.

My view at school was that PE was good for team games and if you wanted to be competitive, but less useful if you wanted just to do sports to keep fit. That also seemed to be the case for my children.

Some children are not very good at organising themselves, and changing rooms can be hell. I've seen PE teachers almost incandescent with rage with my ds about the time he took to change clothes. Yes, I know it is annoying but he really could not manage to get dressed quickly even in a quiet calm place. In a chaotic noisy changing room with clothes being tossed about, it was impossible and made him hate PE.

I hated it for the reasons Milk lists. My Ds loves it.

PE In the school I work in is almost unrecognisable compared to the PE I did at school! It’s really fun and enjoyable and everyone is encouraged to do their best - it is in sets though which I find a bit weird.

Yes yes yes to the elitism and disdain. They never seemed to realise that some of us just didn't like it and weren't good at it, and by bollocking us every time we couldn't do something that the "sporties" could, they were just cementing our hatred of the subject. I could ramble on for days... but also, if there is one sport that a child has a particular aversion to, like I did, do not force them into doing it. I was regularly sick due to the apprehension of the weekly humiliation, so please do not do what my teachers did.

Yes, I hated, loathed and detested PE. Five years after school I took up yoga, loved it, became a teacher and taught yoga for twenty years. The biggest difference that I think you could apply was that yoga is not in any shape or form competitive. I'm not competitive, and doing something just for me with no aspect of having to 'measure up' allowed me to enjoy movement for its own sake. There are other aspects of course but I think this is a biggie.

Yes as PP said PE is rife with bullying and that just seems to be accepted by teachers for some reason. If I'd taken the piss out of someone in English for being a weak reader I'd rightly have been in a world of shit for it, but apparently it was fine for them to do it to me in PE because I wasn't the fastest runner.

I have always tended to assume that PE teachers were the bullies themselves at school and think it's the natural order of things. Sorry if that's not you but I am speaking from bitter experience and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this.

My children find PE just about bearable because they’ve been in the bottom set. This means everyone else is rubbish at it too and they can therefore hold their own in a competitive sport. But most of the time they focus on fitness, and they do lots of different things.
The part they hate most is being made to go outside in the cold or wet - as adults if they want to exercise in bad weather they’ll do something indoors!

I didn’t like it much in primary school (in the 1980s), but got involved begrudgingly. By the 90s and secondary school I detested it, as did 90% of the girls, and there were a lot of fake sick notes going to my PE teacher .

Looking back it was a combination of things. Strict, shouty teachers. Stupid sexist PE kit (pleated skirt and bare legs even in winter). I was crap and there was very little encouragement. etc.

DD (10) absolutely loves PE, though! It’s her favourite subject. She does school sports clubs twice a week on top of that, and plays football for a girls league every weekend. Interestingly, the majority of the kids, including girls, in her class like PE, too. So something has changed. My goal is to try to keep her engaged in to her teenage years, when so many girls seem to drop out.

Oh dreaded misery! The noise and heat used to give me what I now know are migraines. The humiliation, the trying so hard and being rubbish, the being picked last. Rounders, ugh never really knew the rules everyone used to jeer if I missed a catch. PE in vest snd knickers if you forgot your kit. The cold!
Why can't kids wear a tracksuit?
Why can't the teacher pick the teams?
Why don't we know the rules
?
Why is it he jeering allowed?
I love swimming but my dad taught me in our lovely local open air baths in the hot sunshine of 1976 bliss!
Kids don't like PE at school but not as much as me. Cold and boring is what they say oh and getting into trouble about the kit and loosing stuff. Simpler kit? Wear it to school?
Sorry for the ramble, good question

Makes kids spend years doing sports they don't like and aren't good at instead of the ones they can do and enjoy. Especially relevant for kids who are quite good at some things yet not up to the standard of being on school teams who get extra practice sessions. More choice where possible, maybe by having a larger group timetabled to have PE at once and they can then divide into groups for activities.

A lot of emphasis on endurance activities which means that those who are better at strength / fast-twitch activities, if they are not, for example a school team standard sprinter, might feel like they are not much good at sports because they rarely get to do things they are better at.

Other than athletics, not enough opportunity for individual sports and activities that don't involve frequent interaction throughout the lesson.

Terrible shoes without support or cushioning that no adult would be recommended to wear for sports.

Stop compulsory communal showers. I have always been incredibly grateful because my school didn't have them, but just about every other school I've ever heard of ever seems to.

Did I enjoy playing hockey in the snow in PE knickers and t shirt no. Did I enjoy being picked last no. There was a very big girl in my class who was made to run around the field while we were playing rounders did it make her enjoy sport no. I have nightmares 36 years later. PE teachers were sadists one made my friend pull her pants down and show her dirty sanitary towel because she didn't believe she had period pain , bastards

I hated PE because I hate ball games but I used to run marathons so wasn't completely unsporty.

Teenaged DD hates PE because she hates football but she loves when they do workouts. She is athletic and loves a lot of sports but just not football and 80% of the time that's what they play because the boys shout louder about how they want football and then proceed to berate and belittle those who hate football and don't want to play it and aren't good at it. A recipe for unhappiness.

DS loves football and running so does like PE.

I hated it. I'm not very competitive and I didn't really naturally develop skills like throwing and catching. We just played games like hockey and I got shouted at by the rest of the team. I would have liked more individual fitness stuff and more things that were around developing the skills needed to play the games that weren't team based if that makes sense. I also hated the outfits.

My children both love PE - it seems much more structured these days and less team picking, shouting at the weakest player stuff.

That reminded me: when I was at school, apparently some girls had continuous periods, because it was an acceptable reason for not going to swimming lessons.

I expect that isn't an acceptable excuse now.

Both my dd and myself both are a bit meh about PE. For me, I lack competitiveness and wonder what the point of it was. I also lack the motor skills to be any good at any of the sports I was forced to participate in. After leaving school I did exercise that I enjoyed, like rambling, and swimming for pleasure.

DC dread it.

Any game where contact can be made is an excuse to make strong painful contact. This means some children spend the lesson standing at the edge of the sports area doing everything they can to not be involved in the game.

Any game involving a ball is an excuse to kick or throw the ball at someones face forcefully. This means that some children spend the lesson running away from the ball.

Some teachers assume all children know the rules of football, rugby, hockey etc and so never bother teaching them. This means only the 'sporty' kids are able to play the game and excel at the activity.

The kids who play sports outside of school are in the same group as kids who have no interest and play no sports. Again compounding the problem of only sporty kids being able to play and excel in the activity.

If you want to improve things then their needs to be safe non-contact activities made available for the non sporty kids. eg trampolining, chess, meditation, yoga, tai chi, bowls, archery, parkour etc.

I pretty much hated it when I was older - cross country in particular, not so much when I was younger as the games were less competitive and not always outside!

DS1(22) & DD1 (16) hated it, DD2 (11) liked some of it at primary but isn't really enjoying it at secondary - it's a very sporty, competitive school

DS2 (7) loves PE and I'm hoping this continues, he is much more able than the others, more co-ordinated and learned to ride his bike earlier so it's seems to be part of who he is.

Actually DD1 liked it better in Year 11 as they were allowed to choose their activities and included badminton, fitness, yoga - basically less competitive and indoors helped!

Some teachers assume all children know the rules of football, rugby, hockey etc and so never bother teaching them. This means only the 'sporty' kids are able to play the game and excel at the activity.

I completely agree with this. Most of our schools are tiny primaries so they can't even have proper teams to play and practice, but when the kids get to the huge secondary schools they are expected to join in sports that some of them will never have played, without any build up or information about the rules.

I hated it but have grown up to enjoy exercise.

My DD hated school sports until she moved schools when she decided that she wasn't really cut out for team games. Now she has choices such as going to the gym and yoga.

DS on the other hand loves all PE apart from gymnastics & rugby. I think it helps that he's very competitive in everything he does.