PE Grouped by ability??

[NoonarAgain]

DD is 13 yo (YEAR 9) and started a new school last week. Its a very large comp.

She came home today saying that 50 girls were put in one group for PE, then 50 boys in another.

Then a mixed group of boys and girls. 15 in total. Many were very unsporty looking and a little over weight, according to DD. She was in this group. She felt that it was clearly grouping by ability with a mixed group of no hopers.

How would you interpret this? Could dd in any way have misinterpreted this?

BTW DD is v good at dance and has loads of stamina. Ball skills are grim but her last PE report was ok and predicted B/C for GCSE (was compulsory at last school).

Lurked I totally agree that streaming in PE is a good idea. But that doesn't stop the teacher humiliating the people at the back of each group. Or being a sexist arse. Or having no idea how to motivate non sporty kids

I totally agree with you BitOutofPractice.

I cannot understand why school PE does not try to promote exercise according to an individual's ability, I suspect the competitive and public humiliation of the less "sporty" children causes terrible self-esteem issues that last a lifetime and no doubt stops many from trying or enjoying physical activities that would bring health benefits.

The over emphasise on competitive team sports in the curriculum by successive Govts is a big part of the problem.

Fortunately at my DC's school they brought in streaming in the way the OP describes. He was in the group of "no-hopers" (what a horrid, judgemental description) and flourished and thrived because of some great teaching.

He excelled academically and is now in a very high paid career and as I regularly pointed out to him the ability to catch or kick a ball or run faster than your classmates is not something that has any impact on the rest of your life unless you are a professional sportsman. Enjoying and participating in physical activity is much more important.

I supposed that my son is blessed in that he has very kind supportive secondary PE teachers who clearly want the best for him. Nowadays secondary school PE teachers have degrees and are trained teachers. They should be more than capable of devising lesson that will help with fitness. My son has been prescribed a BOSU ball to improve his balance by an NHS physio. It would be lovely if he could do his excercises in a school PE lesson.

I do worry about primary schools employing external companies and the level of the qualifications that sports coaches in primary schools.

"He excelled academically and is now in a very high paid career and as I regularly pointed out to him the ability to catch or kick a ball or run faster than your classmates is not something that has any impact on the rest of your life unless you are a professional sportsman. "

Yes, and no. Developing a good sense of balance in childhood and being reasonably suple means that a child is less likely to have serious falls in old age. Balance training can help with hand writing and coordination. However most schools do not do much help children's balance.

I will add that DDs' school is very sporty - competes nationally and internationally at many sports. So the focus is entirely on the top 10% and the other 90% are just an inconvenience.

And yes, I have been to speak to the PE teacher about her sexist comments

One thought which occurred to me is to check what the different groups were actually doing and if your DD was asked at any point if she wanted to participate in a team sport.

Because as you say ball skills aren't her thing, she might have said she didn't want to do netball (usually netball this term) and she was therefore put in the group of non-netballers and non-footballers.

At our secondary, pupils can opt out of those sports, and do a carousel of other sports instead.

DS2 opted out (hates the main team sports, likes dipping in and out of other things) but has never commented, veiled or explicitly, on what the others who made that choice are like.

You may just have to accept that's what the school does. I noticed in Year 9 (from what my DD was saying) that boys and girls had started mixing a lot more and respecting every other.

My DD is in bottom set for PE. However, she enjoys it more at comp than she ever did in primary as she gets her fair chance of doing things, rather than the best ones being chosen every time. As it happens her running has come on massively - she's top of the group which has inspired her and when the whole year did a 5k run together, she came 3rd. Just gone into Year 10 and they've been told they're planning to challenge some of them by moving them up and she's hoping to be chosen.

Yes, and no. Developing a good sense of balance in childhood and being reasonably suple means that a child is less likely to have serious falls in old age. Balance training can help with hand writing and coordination. However most schools do not do much help children's balance.

Have you any evidence to support this falls statement? Living an active and not a too sedentary life as an adult is much more important than participating in sport as a child. I suspect that adults who participate in team sports are more likely to suffer life changing injuries as a result of their hobbies than those that don't.

But you are missing my point, encouraging all children to participate happily in PE without the humiliation of being worse than their peers is vital, excelling at sports, being able to win or be better than others is not necessary, divisive and likely to make them a poor "team player" in a work situation.

Fine motor skills that impact writing are different to gross motor skills. Fortunately an obsession with Lego, as a child, has given my DS the ability to carry out surgery, despite still being pants at catching a ball

bitout the teachers comments were entirely why we all started backing up my friend. I clearly remember her bellowing the first time we did the 1500m and all but her were sat next to the track, snide encouragements like 'only two and a half laps to go' 'come on the exercise will do you good' 'bit of muscle and your legs won't be sore from rubbing'. Final straw was 'the quicker you finish, the less time we're all stood looking at your thighs' when without a word a few of us got up, took our skirts back off so we were in just gym knickers and joined her. Bitch.

Just vile in't it lurked?

I'm glad your friend had a sporty gag to protect her but as you say, not everyone does.

And these, incidentally, are my DD's legs that she needs to "get moving or she'll never have summer thighs"

Sport gang. Not gag! [shocked]

There were only a few of us actually sporty, the rest were just average. It was more our group, including her, had a reputation for not taking shit from other kids that saved her any of the usual peer grief.
You'll be pleased to hear I struck a blow for bullied unsporty kids everywhere by not turning up to something important to her and therefore leaving her screwed. Although my picked on mate wasn't why I did it.
at your dds truly humongous legs! Is the Pe teacher addicted ro hallucinogenics?

Setting for PE is fine, but having the two gender-streamed "normal" groups plus one mixed-gender "not normal" group is not streaming. And the normal/not normal status is how you'd feel if you were in that school.

Such a small mixed-gender group sounds like a special intervention group, the kind you'd expect for kids with additional needs, not just people who aren't that great at some aspects of some sports. It doesn't sound like a good fit for someone who was previously doing well at PE.

TBH it sounds to me like they'd filled up their allowed student-teacher ratio for the other sets and put the new kid in the low one because that was the only place they could fit her in. They might even be expecting you to complain and ask for her to be moved because then they can justify "overcrowding" the other class.

just stopping by to say a huge thank you to everyone who has shared their views and (often sad) experiences on this thread.

special thanks to scifisam for so succinctly putting into words what is wrong with the set up at the school.

i apologise for getting a bit stressy last night, but i was frustrated that so many posters couldn't see that my issue was not with setting per se. its been really helpful to have some like minded views on here today.

i am going to email the PE leader but maybe not this week.

dd said she had PE (gym) today again and was in the same group again. she wouldn't talk about it as she was clearly upset but didn't want to dwell on it.

i have decided to focus on celebrating the fact that she has been put in the second set (out of 6) for her core academic subjects - something we certainly didn't take for granted and which she is delighted about.

i will pursue this, though, as i know she wants to do GCSE dance, but this poor start could put her off the whole PE department. she also went to a super sporty primary and suffered being last to be picked for teams, although she is athletic in other areas.

its so weird, her previous report for PE was ok. BUT....if they actually spoke to the PE teacher, she may have said DD was near the bottom of the class in PE. however, bottom of the class in a small private class with 16 girls is not the same as bottom of a year of 200 or whatever! i just don't know.

i'll check back in when i've emailed the PE leader.

thanks all :)

I would have LOVED an ability based group setting in PE when I was at school. I hated PE and most of it was just being shouted at for not being fit or coordinated. Coordination I couldn't help and fitness wasn't exactly improved by being given the impression that sport is all about sweat and competing and yelling. Would have been so nice to have been given a nice gentle introduction to fitness. As it is I have done no exercise at all for ten years and finally started a half hearted attempt to get a little bit more healthy in my late 20s.

Sorry to not really respond directly to your post/issue. Hope you get things resolved!

well.. i emailed the school and was told the groups were based on year 8 NC levels.

i then sent a copy of dd's final PE report and asked if the level they had assigned her was consistent with her PE predicted grade.

they wrote back saying actually they didn't get a level for her so actually her placing in that group has nothing to do with her ability! they said they would assess her with a view to moving her as appropriate in a week's time.

I've asked for them to moved her out of the group immediately and assess her from there.

why put a child with no level is such a low group?? why not the middle group and then adjust it??

"why put a child with no level is such a low group?? why not the middle group and then adjust it??"

If your child is in a low group the only way is up. A small group means that the PE teacher has more time to assess. The PE teacher will spot very quickly if your daughter is in the wrong group.Your daughter needs to remain positive and work hard.

I really think that you and daughter need to get over yourself about this. Its only a PE lesson. Its not as if university entrance depends on peforming well in PE like china. Some of the language on this thread has been pretty horrible. Some of us have children in the bottom groups for PE.

I agree with really. Far better to be moved up after assessing than down. I can understand a child being frustrated at not doing activities of an appropriate level, but I'd be disappointed if my child was upset on the basis she felt insulted to be placed with other kids based purely on their appearance.

ok, the reason i'm pursuing this is that dd has some real strengths in sport. but...she is a bit rubbish at ball games. she had a verrry sporty year 6 class who were allowed to pick teams and she was often picked last. the humiliation that went with it was not dealt with well by the teacher. this upset her. it happened often. over a long period.

she then went to secondary and really improved her ball skills. 2 years later, dd is put in this group without any assessment. she has therefore reached the conclusion that when it comes to her, people can just tell by osmosis that she will be no good. i do not want her confidence knocked and her returning to her primary school confidence level with PE.

lurked and really tired, i am not going to take your comments personally as this is not RL and sometimes on a thread people can be misjudged and the full picture is not always evident. i didn't make the self esteem issue the main thing in my OP as i wanted to try to get some insight into the way schools organise things, incase i was jumping the gun.

PE sets only make sense if only doing one sport.

I always caused headaches for the PE teachers at school because in the summer we were in 2 groups: Those good at athletics and those not.
I'm the slowest runner ever, can't jump and can't throw. So very happy in the non-athletic group, as my friends were.

The didn't have enough tennis courts for more than half the girls to do it at once, which was why they did this. So we played tennis when they did athletics and vica versa.
Thing was those good at athletics were also good at all other sports, including tennis.

The reason that we knew it was grouped by this was that the sports matches were arranged during the games lessons often, the tennis matches when they played tennis, and athletics during their athletics lessons.

I caused an issue because I was junior county standard for tennis.

What actually ended up happening was I played tennis during my tennis lessons... and tennis matches during my athletics lessons. Win all round for me.

Thing was they used to pretend they were randomly picking the groups at the start of the summer term. They'd go through everyone and you could see they'd get to me and go and panic would set in.
I like to think they had mercy on me because my friends were all in the non-sporty group, but it probably was that I was so bad at athletics they felt it was a win for me not to do it either.

"PE sets only make sense if only doing one sport."

All subjects have different topics. A child might excel at algebra in Maths, but struggle with geometry. Setting is a starting point and differentiation is still needed in a class setting.

PE is only two hours a week if you care about your child's fitness then what they do outside school has a far greater impact.

PE grouped by ability is fine, however, OP daughter's school is a bit odd by dividing the group like that. If say 4 groups with 1 high group for girl, 1 low group for girl and then 1 high for boy and 1 low for boy, these woud be better. Or 6 groups with a middle set for boy and girl .

My DS's PE has been grouped by ability, he likes it. He is in the middle group, and he said the top group is too serious about compitition, the low group is lack the skills , the middle group is just right for him, they all enjoy games with some skills.