Michael Gove, to slash £162m of sports funding in English schools

[legostuckinmyhoover]

Just when is he going to stop. This man has absolutely no idea. And, they keep on saying...'we are not cutting schools budgets...honest!''

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/20/michael-gove-schools-sport-funding

How much money does it cost to get 10 kids to run in a straight line for 30 seconds?

one child comes first - one child comes last.

I don't agree with schools only being about achieving 4 A's at A level and heading off to university either. I believe they should be giving every child the opportunity to succeed at their skills.

I never went through the grammar/comprehensive system - however given how many schools fail to incorporate both types of teaching (academic and skills) I'm certainly not averse to the idea either.

FGS - "sport" isn't just running.

It is the school's responsibility to provide PE lessons and healthy school lunches.

What's more, it is not the child's fault if their parents don't provide opportunities for exercise - so it is A Good Thing if children get support at school that is missing at home. For instance, I imagine young carers don't get much opportunity to play football or do gymnastics out of school (and there are an astonishingly high number of them).

The article stated that some schools don't have PE teachers. Surely that is a wrong state of affairs! I hope those schools re-examine their priorities pronto.

Just in case anyone has run away with the idea that this govt announcement has anything at all to do with introducing a more competitive ethos, here are the details of the announcement, to replace £162m general sports funding with £10m.

Thanks to school--community partnerships and trained PE teachers my son has participated in all sorts of competitive events that will now fold.

ds's primary doesn't have a PE teacher. Can't afford it. We had a form teacher who was very keen on sport and basically ran and organised all the physical activity and liaised with the school sport partnership. He's moved on but I gather one of the new recruits is going to take it up.

How odd. I don't ever remember a primary school having a teacher, what do the "real" teachers do then?

A school has a duty to ensure its children get adequate exercise and the opportunity to participate in competitive sport.
This can be achieved by having a field and children. All schools have those.

If you want more - you pay for it.

'This can be achieved by having a field and children. All schools have those.'

A lot of schools do not have a field,or even the space to run competitive games.

I just take heart that the infant school headteacher is not averse to running after school sports clubs himself - including the football club.

DS3 LOVES football (I have no idea how this came to be - the rest of us in this house hate it and it's never on the TV/played in teh garden) - so hopefully the after school football club at the infant school will continue to run and he'll have an opportunity to play, and perhaps(?) even compete as I certainly can't afford to let him do it outside of school.

3/4 of the after school clubs at the junior school will probably shut though as they're all from outside sources.

All primary school teachers are expected to teach PE as part of the curriculum. Some schools have a specialist teacher, it's a funding choice.
Unpaid extracurricular sports happen because teachers are either obsessed with children and sport or guilted into it because otherwise it won't happen.
Especially if you have to rely on parents for support with either transport, funds or helping to run activities.

Daftpunk,physical education is more than just getting the heartrate up. Possibly you are thinking too much in terms of primary school, not secondary? There is plenty to learn that requires equipment and training. Restricting PE to running round a field is possibly like restricting general education to learning to read and write.

we don't have a field at the infant school, or the junior school for that matter.

there is the park nearby (which is used for the annual sports day) - but it's not a realistic prospect to use it regularly for PE lessons/regularly

I strongly dislike the idea that schools should only offer running up and down and a weekly timetabled class music lesson and concentrate purely on academic (University - straight A's) success for all children.

Children are at school to learn how to read and write ...
An old fashioned wacky idea maybe .... But I like it...

My kids are all excellent at sport ... because I took them to swimming clubs and football sessions etc

I paid for it....

so only rich kids should get to pursue careers in things that aren't academic??

Small state, small tax. Fair enough.

But what the goal of this government here is: small state, high tax. Pay for it yourself, you lazy fecking scroungers, but do it on less money as we tax you to high heaven at every turn and you pay more and more for crappier and crappier service (trains, anyone?).

This is starting to get pretty old for a game of soldiers.

Baroque, c'mon, you know people who can't afford to pay are just feckless and lazy. Or buying the latest gadgets and going on 3 foreign holidays a year.

We should get together and record a track: Flatscreen TV and 3 Foreign Holidays a Year.

No - if you're really good at something you'll get spotted eventually regardless of background and possible barriers ... Look at Billy Elliot

Billy Elliot is fiction......

most of us here live in the real world not a dream fantasy land

But Money can buy experiences and a lifestyle.
All our politicians are from very privileged backgrounds. - that's how it works.

Um, right. Even if you're really good, you need to a play to practice and have lessons.

If you're never exposed to it, because your lazy feckless scrounger parents couldn't afford it (anyone who can't is a lazy feckless loser no matter if they work or not), then how will you ever know you're good?

What a waste of talent short-sightedness causes.

yes - so that's what I said earlier - poor kids should only be given the opportunity to have academic careers - even if they're not particularly academic? While the rich kids get to pick and choose because of (quite often) a huge amount of luck in having the ££££'s in their mummy or daddy's pocket

'But Money can buy experiences and a lifestyle.'

Grand. So let's all of us aim to do only things that pay a lot of money. Pray tell, then, who will do all the essential things like bin collection, nursing, admin assistant, post delivery, etc that don't pay a lot?

Or are those people just born to be bottom feeders who should just shut up and accept their caste?