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 sometimes enjoyed it and sometimes didn't.

Largely depending on whether the other kids included everyone to be honest and not what the teacher did! However I think a really good pe teacher would put a lot of effort into making sure there is a genuine team spirit amongst all the kids, as feeling included, knowing X who plays at county level will pass you the ball really helps the kids who aren't naturals feel involved and included as opposed to cold props on the edge of someone else's fun!

My kids seem to largely enjoy it, except cross-country which they all hate. Fair enough!

Whether or not OP has disappeared it’s interesting (and very sad) that so many have a similar negative experience. I wonder if those who have a more positive experience didn’t respond or whether most people have such bad experiences. It’s such a shame and I really hope it changes

Me, 58: it was harsh, vile, humiliating, and dominated by the alpha girls who came to nothing and are now fatties behind tills in Margate at the time they were the clever girls.

DD, 20: it was harsh, vile, humiliating and dominated by the alpha girls. DD was more sensitive than me and equally hopeless at it.

Ruined school days for both of us. But we had the last laugh: at 27 (in 1988 my p60 noted £107,000. DD is at one of the most prestigious Cambridge colleges.

What was that about sport ? Nah, it is totally irrelevant to future success and a complwte waste of time for normal, dece t people with ambition.

"Ruined school days for both of us. But we had the last laugh: at 27 (in 1988 my p60 noted £107,000. DD is at one of the most prestigious Cambridge colleges.

What was that about sport grin? Nah, it is totally irrelevant to future success and a complwte waste of time for normal, dece t people with ambition."

For "normal, decent people" you sound awfully bitter.

I loved it. I was tall for my age, strong, fast, etc. Was always first to be picked, on all school sports teams, ran for my county. I was very competitive, and loved to win.
My daughter likes PE, but the my eldest ds hates it. He is autistic, high functioning, and hates every aspect of it. Getting changed, having to compete, be outside in the cold etc. I think he'd probably like it more if he could jump about on a trampoline.

I hated it, spent most of the lessons skulking around trying to avoid doing anything. I would suggest trying more ‘gentle exercise’ for the PE dodgers, brisk walking, low impact aerobic stuff?

My DS loves PE at school & all sports, now (17) still plays competitively for local teams (not football ). I am really pleased he enjoys sports, it keeps him fit, great team ethic, good for mixing & meeting new friends. His uni application seems to be based on where best he play his sport !

I hated PE, I was always picked last and then the sub so never played. The teacher adored the netball team and had nicknames for all of them which just excluded everyone else. Me and my best friend used to forge each other’s notes to get out of it.

I didn't like it as I didn't know the rules of games and we seemed to just be expected to already know them. I wasn't good at ball games. I could do long distance running and swimming.
My dd isn't particularly good at sport but has always enjoyed it. Her PE teachers seem good and nice and are fine with the non sporty ones. Dd didn't take PE GCSE but does fitness suite (gym equipment like you'd get in an adult gym) badminton and trampolining. She likes it.

She does those things at school I mean as they still do PE if they don't pick it as a GCSE

I think in dd's school the teachers realise they need to actually teach game rules rather than just assume they know them

I always think of this ...

goo.gl/images/rsj84s

Team sports should be only for those who actually want to do them. For the unsporty ones, they're hell and are very damaging. Making an unsporty person do a team sport doesn't automatically make them sporty and a team player - it MAY do for the odd person, but for the majority, it causes them to hate sports, bunk off, increases bullying and reduces ability to work in a team. If I had my way, I'd scrap them and concentrate on individual gym/fitness work instead - team sports can be done as extra curricula or via local teams outside school for those who want to do them.

I hated it. OH hated it. Both DSs hated it.

PE teaching doesn’t appear to have changed much to me. Still focused on team sports, still plenty of cross country, still shivering in shorts while the teacher is tucked up warm. Plenty of teasing of the less able pupils, too much negativity from the teachers with little to no recognition of the wide range of aptitude and ability in the class.

Both my DSs excelled at swimming but because they weren’t interested in chasing a ball the PE teacher treated them pretty shoddily.

School PE is not a great way to encourage people to find an exercise they enjoy and keep moving in the life they have after school. There must be a better way

Yet another crap at PE, same as above. Ds is similar but had one year of vaguely liking PE - Y2 when they got a dozen or so kids for 'PE club' aka support group, and taught them how to throw and catch and kick a ball etc.
With someone upthread who didn't know you don't kick a football with your toes - I realised it was harder than it looked when trying to teach my toddler (I can't balance on one leg which didn't help). DP didn't know either. So by age 4 at school most of the boys were already leagues ahead.

Thing is although rubbish at sport, put me in a hill run, swimming pool or climbing wall and I kick ass. PE offers nothing for people who are more build for strength and endurance

I'm the same. Hated school sports with a passion which helped ruin my school life (due to bunking off, being bullied etc). I was overweight so useless in competitive sports. But I have endurance, and in adulthood, I walk miles, ski, play golf, cycle, swim and play squash - and I'm a regular at the local gym. I can honestly, and 100%, say that I'd have been better off not doing PE/Sports at school - it did absolutely nothing for me and caused all kinds of anxiety etc that damaged my education.

Hated it. My kids think it's fine

My main complaint was PE teachers didn't teach, just shouted and then yelled insults when I couldn't do it (I so want to tell one now, 'that's Dr bloody Spazz, actually...')

It was a revelation when I was 10 and the science teacher had to cover PE. She explained how to run round bouncing a ball, you have to push it towards the ground, and at the angle you want it to bounce away at like there's a mirror in front of it. All previous teachers had just yelled 'keep your eye on the ball' - it's a bloody netball - seeing it is not the problem!

It is a pretty damning assessment of PE that I am already planning damage limitation strategies for when my boys go to secondary school. They are both active and love being outdoors but don't do structured team sports at all, especially my ASD oldest.

I hated hated it in y7-9, running cross country through mud in shorts and t-shirt in December was awful, and playing any team sport with boys was an utter waste of time because they would never pass to you. Also hated field sports as the teacher opened our first lesson by telling us about all the children that had been killed by javelins and shotputs through messing about so I was scared to touch the things! In y10 my whole year group were timetabled PE at the same time so they could offer different options like step aerobics, swimming and table tennis. Absolutely loved it after that!

I met my lifelong best friend in pe swim lessons as we were both so poor at it we were told to sit at the side of the pool all lesson. (My son has had swim lessons since he was 5, I'm not letting him go through the same experience).

I hated the competitiveness, the changing in communal areas, never having good branded kit (poor family), never being chosen for teams, pe teacher ignoring me all lesson and then writing in my school report that I never joined in.

My son used to love pe until year 2 and it just seems to be about football now. He has ASD and although has friends the boys who play football at playtime stick together in pe and he gets chosen last. He hasn't a clue how to play.

He loved it when it was gymnastics, breathing exercises, stretching and sprinting etc. He sees already that if you don't excel at a team sport you get no attention.

In fact at a school activity day he went to take a penalty shoot out turn to win a football and the pe teacher said 'hello master frogsbreath' in a very formal way and I was furious. He mocked my autistic son's formal tone and intonation in front of everyone. If the pe teacher thinks it's ok to mock those who aren't good of course the other children will do the same.

I told the pe teacher my son prefers to be called his own name

I hated it. I was useless at hockey, netball, gymnastics and tennis. Didn't mind swimming although we didn't do that after 3rd yr (yr 9).
My DS also hated PE as he hated football and rugby - which is what lessons mainly consisted of. He did like swimming and when they were old enough to use gym equipment he liked that.
I used to listen to the PE teacher at parents evening droning on about DS's lack of interest in the lessons and then regale him with DS's sporting activities outside of school which included Karate, a non competitive swimming club, indoor climbing, running (he did 5k park run with his Dad most weekends and had run in a 10k race with a good time) and at 14 he joined our local gym! Not everyone wants to play football & rugby!

I was at secondary school in the early 80s and I hated it with a passion for the same reasons many other people have given. Skimpy PE knickers whatever the weather, communal showers, but overwhelmingly because I was crap at it and that meant constant humiliation. I can't throw, I can't catch, I can't hit a ball. Which meant always being picked last, constant groans from team-mates and failing at everything because every damn thing we did was competitive and seemed to involve a ball of some description. It was a sad day the teacher spotted that I never actually got to the front of the rounders queue.

I was fairly fit because I did a lot of riding and stable work outside school, and once I was out of school and around adults and able to recover some small shreds of self-esteem, I discovered that I liked fitness classes, dance, yoga, weight training and even a bit of badminton. But I truly don't see why they couldn't just let me piss off to the local riding school at PE time to help with the Riding for the Disabled programme instead of doing competitive sport. They were perfectly happy for me to miss personal/social health class to do that. Doing a non-competitive activity out of the school environment would have kept me sane and made me less of a pariah.

My sons, fortunately, appear to have inherited the sporty gene from their father and are quite happy doing PE. I note that they are allowed to wear weather appropriate clothing and had the option to do dance instead from year 10.

Everyone on my family hates team sports. Athletics and gymnastics are a bit better.
What we all love is martial arts, climbing, swimming and dance. I realise dance is an art not a sport but dance based exercise is good.

For me at school choice would have been key, I would gladly have done aerobics every day,

I was shit at team sports, and constantly let everyone down.
But to the kids who are good at it it takes on huge importance, and gets taken ( IMO) way too seriously. This takes any fun out of it.
So if I were organising it I’d leave the team sports to the keenies, and offer choice as much of the time as possible.
It took me till my 30 s to realise I liked certain sports, because pe, especially team stuff had totally put me off. I could have had an extra 15 years of fitness!

Op if you are still there, there are probably some useful messages:

For competitive team sports, don't assume everyone already knows the rules. Many keen players will already know, but some won't.

You need a mix of competitive team sports and sport more aimed at keeping fit, strength, flexibility etc

Everyone starts with different levels of ability and fitness and there are many ways to enjoy sport. It is worth helping each person find a sport they can do and enjoy.

Not being good at a particular sport is not just down to lack of trying. Some of us are disadvantaged from the start, and that shouldn't make us a target for bullying.

Don't let those keen on team sports bully and humiliate others by allowing them to pick their teams etc

Keep some order and calm in changing rooms so children can get dressed in peace.

The problem is that PE/games teachers were good at team sports themselves when at school, and were probably the bullies themselves. If they'd been any real good at sport, they'd have done it professionally, so teaching is their second choice. As such, they'll have no empathy for those who aren't good or don't like team sports.