How could PE be improved in schools?

[chris1987]

I'm studying to be a PE teacher and would really like to know your thoughts on how PE could be improved :)

I'm not sure if this the case but PE teachers need training about common conditions such as athsma and hypermobility. Also it is critical that children with learning difficulties get to participate fully since physical activity will help with cognitive performance.

As someone who hated PE, I would say emphasis on fitness not team games which all but the best generally despise.
Kindness in cold weather. More indoor games if possible. Choice.

I'm also all for having specialist PE at primary level. I hated PE and was fairly probably hopeless at teaching it which was hardly fair on my pupils.

We are not in the uk.
Adjust for the weather - so in the winter (25C) by boys have done running (sprinting and longer distance) and field stuff. Also football. As it gets warmer (topping out at 45C) they are inside, doing all sorts of things- basket ball, badminton, gymnastics. There is a focus of form as well as pure skill.

Allow everyobe to partake in Sports day - so we had the typical track and field stuff, but they also had jousting with foam swords, throwing balls, obstacle courses. Everyone was doing something all the time on field events. Just the track where they had to wait. So 250 kids, with aprox 150 doing anything at amy one time.

This is primary, btw.

At my school they bring in choice for the older kids for core PE

And therein lies the problem. "older" kids! By the time the kids are old enough to have the choice (usually mid teens) it's too late. The "less able" ones have already been well and truly put off school sports. Proper choice and a range of activities needs to be available from day one so that kids don't get a hatred of sports.

Drop the emphasis of "team" sports. For the kids who are unfit, fat, or have other physical impediments, it actually discourages "team" work. It's fine for the able/sporty ones but does absolutely nothing for the others. I was crap at "team" sports at school and it caused me to hate other "team" activities such as working in groups etc due to the bullying I received from being crap at team sports. The "stigma" I suffered on the sports pitches crossed over into the classroom and I was ostracised from classroom, drama, art etc teamwork exercises too, which likewise caused confidence issues throughout my working life and even now, at 54, I hate "team" work either at work or involving my hobbies.

If you have to pick teams, do it so that one captain creates two teams, then the other captain gets to pick which team is theirs (if you see what I mean). Tends to make them a bit more balanced.
Like others have said - encourage fitness as a goal in its own sake, not just to be good at sports (or to be thin).
Help other teachers to find ways to incorporate movement into regular classes - because in my DSs school, one PE lesson a week accompliselhes very little.

If you have to pick teams, do it so that one captain creates two teams, then the other captain gets to pick which team is theirs (if you see what I mean).

No, if you have to pick teams, do it randomly, either names in a hat or a randomiser app. Much fairer and quicker.

My mum was a PE teacher for 35 years OP
This was a different time in a different country but the way she evaluated us was by comparing your results in September with your results further down the line, nobody was assessed or compared to others.
We also had a huge range of choices, football, running, jumping, cha cha chá and other dances, juggling and so on.
You could pick what you liked and she would asses you on how much you worked on it.
A few things were standard of course.
But this was 20 years ago she taught me and I think she mentioned things changed after that

The point of not letting captains pick teams is to avoid the same kids always being picked last and the anxiety that creates.

As someone who hated PE, I would say emphasis on fitness not team games which all but the best generally despise.

YES! I was crap at school sports due to being overweight and hated them. However, over time, I've learned to love exercise, despite still being overweight. I've skied several times, play squash, I cycle, swim and walk weekly, and am a regular gym attender. Forget the team sports and concentrate on general fitness and exercise.

We were also never made to pick teams!
It was always randomly done with a game.
Nobody ever knew who was great and who was rubbish because there was a lot or rotating team and working individually too

Now I miss my mum 😔
PE was everyone's favourite subject, it was play.

Get kids fit first! Individual classes like dance or gym yoga rather than constant team sports

Let this who want to play play rather than limit them to 'the best'

Baby he sports trophies for 'best footballer' etc so much for a team game!!

Diversity of sports - including minority sports.
Enough time for girls to change and dry their hair after PE (shown to increase participation by girls)
Some differentiation
Sports teachers who enjoy sport themselves
Appropriate clothing - what’s the thing about not letting them take coats out in the cold

Ds goes to a sporty school. It’s so sporty they do trials for the non competitive stuff. Not inclusive in the slightest.

Pathetic as we live a country full of obese kids.

Do it every day. At least in schools that aren’t doing the morning mile.

I shudder to think of team sports at school. Those should be optional only. Lots and lots of choices, you never know what you enjoy til you try a wide range. It was so samey when I was at school. Hated it, and I love sports now.

More fun, less punitive (for some, anyway!).

Clothing - the teachers wear as many layers as they need while the kids are freezing in barely 2 layers. That puts off even the sporty kids.
Uniform needs to make girls feel less self conscious. This was a big deal when I was at school. Feeling self conscious meant not trying.

A bigger variety of sport. This term dd has had 20 hours of Just Dance which she's enjoyed. Kids do the moves to a Just Dance video from YouTube in "teams".

Our school offers Basketball for boys and Netball for girls. Why not basketball for both?!

If you would find it humiliating dont make the kids do it.

Things that made me hate PE as the fat kid at school:

• Being made to do trampolining in a mixed sex class a t 13 wearing just gym knickers and a tshirt because I'd forgot it was trampolining and bough leggings by mistake instead of the bloody impractical gym skirt.
• Being lined up and weighed with weight shouted out to the class, then paired up with teacher selected partner who proceeded to use pincers to measure body fat. I think I was about 12 and definitely knew that the bitchy mean girl i had been paired with would torture me after that.
• Being lined up at the showers and having te PE teacher whip away your towel and shove you naked into t the showers while they watched to make sure you had cleaned properly.

Oh and picking the muddiesy, wettest day of the year for 'cross country' which in our school was getting m uddy running and falling across the school field then onto the pavement alongside.a.massive dual carriageway where drivers would honk and splash us with muddy puddle water.

Can't believe that many PE teachers would be happy to run around in front of their colleagues in just knickers, let their colleagues see and pinch their flabby bits, strip naked and let them observe them.showering. Yet its apparently just fine to.do that to kids!

Lwmommy horrifically, our female PE teachers were happy to strip off and get in the shower with us. There wasn't enough mind bleach in the world for us 11 year olds.

Celebrate improvement rather than performance.

Learn from things like parkrun - the kid who is last in x-country but manages to be three minutes faster than last time is working just as hard as the kid who comes first in a record time.

On the main point, I was very fit and competed outside school in a sport. I was rubbish at netball, hockey and athletics so school PE was miserable. I was always the last one or two to be picked and I guess PE teachers don't understand the burning humiliation of that, month after month after month.
You don't let the clever kids stand and laugh at the child who can't read or do long division. No other subject is taught by yelling at children to try harder.

PE teachers who are good at teaching PE - encouraging everyone and building skills in everyone. Every PE teacher I ever had took the A team kids and ignored the others. You wouldn’t get away with this in any other subject.

Like pp have said, I discovered physical activity long after I left school. I taught myself to run and to swim decent distances. I found I enjoy yoga and am an ok dancer. How was none of this revealed at school? Because I was shit at team games and wasn’t on the A team so was comprehensively ignored.

Hope you can be the PE teacher that kids need

Ds is average at most at team sports but loves them for fitness, fun and the social side rather than being too competitive. Build mixed ability teams and teach teamwork so everyone can enjoy.

Hate the idea of the use of gym equipment in the school environment. Ds's class gets free rein in the school gym with only one teacher supervising and all that happens is the kids try to show off to each other, lift weights too heavy and risk injury.

My PE teachers couldn't have done a better job putting me off sport than if they had been actively trying.

Accept that not everyone has the same natural ability and don't be mean to those who aren't great