Am I only one to think dance in schools is utter timewaste?

[inkyfingers]

Our local co-ed school does dance for all in KS3 - 1 lesson a week or two for THREE years. My middle son loathed it - painfully embarrassing. Not the only unwilling boy in the class by any means I gather. But DC3 heading there & I'm feeling cross .

Drama very useful for presentation technique. Which is important in so many careers these days.

In drama I think they have to write plays, discuss plays etc. so there is quite a lot of written work. It isn't all pretending to be a growing tree!

DAnce is good exercise and it is good that it's included. One question though do the girls have to do football?

zazen, lol at you thinking that sport was an opportunity to have your breasts checked out

i preferred to use sport as a way to show the boys that i was a faster runner. they hated every minute of it and would always complain that i had somehow managed to cheat as it wasn't possible for me to have beaten them, being merely a girl, and all.

but i'm not competitive. oh no.

i love that been beta hates it btw, (not in a mean way, just that i think it's really funny - dh was the same until he had a son that loves to dance)

it's not an easy option if it's being taught properly - it's blooming hard work.

I don't see the problem with it at all. as long as it's part of a varied sport curriculum that is.

anything that gets kids active is a plus in my book, and the more different activities they try throughout their school career, the more chance they have of discovering something they are good at. not everyone wants to do competitive sport and that shouldn't mean they can't access PE. the problem with only doing the 'traditional' sports is that unless you are one of the talented ones you just end up on the sidelines anyway.

"Non competitive sports are much better for girls - like yoga pilates and dancing, and more competitive sports for boys have been shown to be better"

That is such a sweeping statement and reinforcing of stereotypes its right up there with:

Girls like pink and playing with dolls.

Boys like blue and climbing trees.

Well I have never needed to recall the periodic table or the reproductive parts of a plant since I took my science GCSE

I do, however, do drunk dancing at least once or twice a year, so I know which subject would have been more worthwhile for me
Didnt do woodwork but I'd love to be able to knock up a few shelves or a Perspex toothbrush holder too

Now that would have been handy

I read a similar study on competitive or not and the key thing that was talked about was accessibility. Girls tend to find non-competitive physical activity more accessible and less intimidating. By making sport more of a cooperative, social, supportive activity girls are more likely to engage. It certainly doesn't mean they can't be good at competitive sports but when you're talking about compulsory sport non-competitive is likely to be more successful overall for girls. The competitively minded ones learn to compete against themselves. It's actually a good lesson to learn - that not everything in life is about beating someone else, sometimes it's about pushing yourself further.

Back on topic....

Structured dance in schools? Yes. Surprisingly useful in later life and teaches teamwork, physical coordination, self expression and (for many forms) cultural awareness and history.

Group choreography? Yes. Teamwork, musical appreciation, creativity and self-confidence.

Individual interpretative dance? Waste of time.

Oh FGS!

Life is about competing at some level.

Protecting girls from competition or allowing them to opt out of competition is just a gobsmackingly bad reason to teach them dance instead of sport.

there's plenty of boys who don't like competitive sport, and I reckon it's far worse for them than for non-sporty girls - because of the expectation that all boys love football or rugby or similar. if a girl hates sport it's "oh well never mind" but if a boy hates sport he's a wimp.

I totally agree about accessibility. IMO it's really important to offer as many sports/activities as possible.

absolutely Alegbra - so far DS3 is the only one of my 3 that's shown any interest in a competitive team type sport (football - urghhh ).

DS2 loves dancing, and quite enjoyed the athletics they did last term (he's in YR2) and I think has a "care free" enough attitude to ,not bother with any coments he gets.

DS1 during the world cup told me that he'd finally admitted to his best friend (who is football crazy, playing and watching) that he hates football and has no interest in it. They're 10 and have known each other 8yrs. Thankfully best friend is a lovely boy who basically said "so what?".

some of the other boys were not so impressed.

He quite fancies archery.

And if girls don't like competitive sports how come the English woman are so bloody good at Cricket, and Rugby (not sure about Football?? Have we ever won the Woman's world cup in Football or even come close???)
Why is it that the sport with the biggest following in the UK we're actually pretty shite at as a nation?

And anyone seen how well our men and woman are at the Commonwealth games? In a wide variety of disciplines - yet we continue to want to throw a limited choice of "traditional" competitive sports, with the dash of athetlics thrown in at our youngsters.

Why do some people buy into the 'climb the greasy pole' ethos so easily and believe it's good for everyone to be this way? There can only be a very limited number of people atop that pole, and everyone else underneath will be valued for their teamwork/supportive/following instructions skills.

The UK is shite at women's football because the US dominates the game. The US dominates the game because it's considered a girls' sport in the US, or a sport for girly men who couldn't hack it at American Football (aka 'real football'). Men's football is suspected of being a sport for pansies who like to hug each other, and are over emotional.

Girls' sports are taken very seriously in the US because of the existence of Title IX sports scholarships to universities. Time spent in rigorous training from age 4 onwards is considered an investment in a girl's future, and results in a huge pool of excellent players from which to select national squads.

lol, here in canada soccer is one of the main sports that girls do - a very far cry from the 'omg there is a girl that wants to play football' ideology that existed in the uk schools mine went to. here it's practically a girls sport.

and the girls have awesome volleyball teams etc too. sport is taken v seriously and you get tax rebates on extra-curricular sports fees for your kids.

If dance was really an activity girls chose to avoid nasty competition, why do so many of them put themselves through ballet school, with ballet exams and moving up classes and constant auditioning for parts? Far more competitive than just playing football imho.

Surely what we should all be asking for is a wide and varied PE/sports curriculum with well trained, competent teachers, to instil an interest in different types of personalities without preconceived ideas of gender.

And fwiw I have never heard of a school that teaches dance to the exclusion of everything else.

Is the growing prevalence of dance in the PE curriculum (in England) part of the change to National Curriculum PE? On visiting secondary schools recently I asked them if they did swimming, and most of them said no they don't any more as it's no longer on the NC - there's some broad catch-all about 'working at maximum capacity' or somesuch that they can fulfil with other things that don't involve transporting children across town and waiting ages for them to get changed. So maybe dance fulfils some other of these new strands that might previously have been done by some other sport but requires less equipment or whatever?

(Step forward, secondary teachers in England )

The few dancers I knew at secondary school (as in the ones who went on to further study after GCSE) were amongst the most competitive & driven people I have ever met in my life.

They certainly didn't take up dancing to opt out of competition.

It's maybe not quite the same style of competitiveness that you find on a rugby pitch or a hockey field. Perhaps more akin to endurance sports.

Anyway, I'm sure school rugby lessons have plenty of boys just learning how to run around pointlessly in the distance without drawing attention to themselves or coming anywhere a near a ball or a scrum. Not sure that's a particularly good lesson for life (or maybe it is .

Personally, I enjoyed the more non-competitive stuff in P.E. (aerobics, cross-country) but was very competitive academically. Some people were the other way round.

That does seem a lot of dance described in the OP though, either there isn't much room for other sports (bad) or its an extra to the usual P.E. curriculum (better).

I teach in a large secondary school in quite a deprived area. Our KS3 students get an hour of dance and an hour of drama per week, in addition to their core PE entitlement.

Dance has really taken off. This year we are running a boys GCSE group. It isn't all pink and fluffy- in fact our dance teacher threw a strop when her presentation sheets for open evening were photocopied on 'girly pink' by the reprographics team.

As for drama, it is incredibly useful in a catchment like ours. The students learn how to stand, present and use their voice effectively. It's amazing what a difference it makes, actually.

We're a newish school and have been praised by OFSTED for our varied curriculum and the pathways that we create for our students.

My boys have 1 hr of dance a week in yr7, 2 hrs in yr8 and 1 hr in yr 9. ds1 - not particularly sporty or well-coordinated - has really enjoyed dance. I would rather he had more dance lessons and fewer PE lessons as he loathes football and rugby.

If it's taught well, dance can be just as enjoyable for all students.

I used to teach at a boys' school with a fantastic dance department, and most of the boys came to love it. They became more comfortable with their bodies and more confident and (dare I say it) attractive to the girls at the next door girls' school! I think teaching young men to dance and develop rhythm and poise is very important, and their future partners will thank us for it! On a more serious note, it was the making of many troublesome boys who really found a niche in the dance department, and were able to represent the school at local and national competitions.