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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Quick poll - do your kids have mixed sex PE lessons?

42 replies

DenbyGirl · 28/05/2019 11:03

Was just reading an article about schools not letting girls do football and rugby. In my dc's school, girls and boys do PE lessons together and all do all sports.

How about yours?

OP posts:
soulrunner · 28/05/2019 11:04

So girls and boys play full contact rugby at secondary age,mixed??

floraloctopus · 28/05/2019 11:05

Mixed at primary, separate at secondary.

Itsagrandoldteam · 28/05/2019 11:06

On special occasions, when they are doing something out of the ordinary they do mixed PE, but usually it is separate.

soulrunner · 28/05/2019 11:07

Here they play basically the same sports but play single sex so the girls play soccer against other girls etc.

Pinkyyy · 28/05/2019 11:09

I've never come across a school with mixed PE. Girls always do football but tend to do tag rugby instead of normal rugby.

DenbyGirl · 28/05/2019 11:14

soulrunner sorry should've clarified, they don't do rugby (at all) at my dc's school.
But everything else (I think) in mixed classes. I have a girl and a boy, neither really sporty and neither of them minds doing mixed lessons

OP posts:
soulrunner · 28/05/2019 11:14

I think schools actually cop a lot of flak for no girls rugby. I know it’s chicken and egg but where I live the 15 mini rugby clubs have had a huge push on girls rugby and the drop out at contact level is still really high which means there’s no critical mass in inter kin tournaments. Unless women’s pro rugby gets more airtime there’s a massive ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’ factor at play.

tiedy · 28/05/2019 11:23

My 13 yo DS is at secondary school here in Australia and the girls and boys all play sports together

KittyMcKitty · 28/05/2019 11:25

At my children’s school they do PE and Games.

PE is things like tennis, badminton, trampolining, athletics, gymnastics- this happens in their class and is mixed sex.

For Games (essentially team sports) all the year group have at the same time and it is streamed and sex segregated. Girls do (on rotation) netball, Hockey, football, rugby, rounders and cricket. Boys do the above but not netball or rounders. Both boys and girls row but this is opt in.

The school plays in leagues for all team sports (boys and girls).

The only time team sports are mixed are for house competitions - for house rugby they only play touch rugby (both boys and girls play contact if single sex).

soulrunner · 28/05/2019 11:45

tiedy what spirts do they play? Presumably no contact sport in school?

PenguinsRabbits · 28/05/2019 12:05

DD is in a mixed set for PE, y8.

TeenTimesTwo · 28/05/2019 12:05

Single sex PE. Girls do soccer as part of their rotation.

Any contact activities need to be separate sexes for differences in size and physical strength imo. Athletics could be mixed but for timetabling reasons easier to also keep single sex. I suspect also that mixing for PE could lead to even less participation from girls as they might not want to get hot and sweaty infront of the boys.

Trans pupils change with their own sex (or separate) and do PE with own sex (not with the gender they are identifying as).

Zodlebud · 28/05/2019 14:48

Slightly OT but PE / games is the only lesson at school where there are boys and girls “subjects”. Can you imagine if this applied to other curriculum lessons - there would be uproar!

I understand why some schools split the delivery of the lessons between sexes but wouldn’t it be great if the boys were doing gymnastics or netball in the same way as girls having the opportunity to do rugby and cricket? It’s hardly a level playing field (excuse the pun....)

PoloMama · 28/05/2019 20:39

This seems to be a British thing. Personally I'd prefer to see mixed sport in schools at some level.

pikapikachu · 28/05/2019 21:08

Single sex PE. Personally I think it's better for secondary school age girls to play football/rugby/athletics against other girls.

pikapikachu · 28/05/2019 21:09

Boys and girls play the same sports apart from basketball for boys and netball for girls.

BrainScience · 28/05/2019 21:12

Single sex for games and mixed sex for PE round these parts.

Lelelel26 · 28/05/2019 21:14

Dd secondary school year 10. Mixed pe.

Just checked with dd and she said all mixed, on rotation, netball, football, everything. Mixed rugby up to year 8 and then stopped.

Only 2 girls in her (top) set and 28 boys Smile.

soulrunner · 29/05/2019 02:26

Only 2 girls in her (top) set and 28 boys smile.

Great, so the other girls get the message that they're mediocre at sport because they can't compete with post-pubescent boys. Craziness.

mathanxiety · 29/05/2019 02:44

Some single sex and some co-ed (US).

Single sex PE classes -
For both boys and girls: Swimming-diving/CPR/AED,
For girls:
Gymnastics/wellness,

Girls' self defence/healthy relationships.
For boys -
Boys' equivalent to the girls' self defence/healthy relationships class, both classes devised and developed by the local women's shelter/DV agency, whose intention is to teach girls empowerment and an alternative to toxic masculinity.
Boys' Team sports - includes flag football - American obv - and basketball.

Co-ed -
Health/sex ed/nutrition,
Racquet sports,
World Dance,
General fitness indoors (yoga, zumba, pilates, exercise equipment) and outdoors (running),
Co-ed team sports - flag football, soccer, lacrosse, softball, ultimate Frisbee, floor hockey, volleyball, basketball, and team handball are included,
Adventure Ed - climbing wall, kayaking in the pool, rescue protocol, cooking over a fire, safety in the great outdoors (plants, animals, trail/hiking rules, respect for the environment).

mathanxiety · 29/05/2019 02:52
  • Co-ed Team Sports, while a mixed sex class, is divided according to sex. This prevents the phenomenon of girls sitting out rotations in volleyball, soccer, lacrosse and basketball in particular, in preference to getting hit by balls that are being hit extremely hard and by elbows that are moving fast at eye level.

No sports are streamed, so you could have a team -for instance a boys' volleyball team - consisting of one or two students who are possibly going to get NCAA scholarships and some who have never played.

    • Also co-ed is drivers' ed, which takes place during a PE slot in sophomore year.
MrsDrSpencerReid · 29/05/2019 02:58

DD 12 is in her first year of secondary and they do mixed sport and PE. We’re also in Australia.

Sparrow8 · 29/05/2019 03:32

Also in Australia. Mixed PE in years 7 & 8. Girls and boys split for years 9 & 10. Year 11 and 12 only do PE if taking as an elective.

isabellerossignol · 29/05/2019 03:39

PE and Games are separate at my daughter's school, with the exception of swimming.

For games the girls do hockey and the boys do rugby, and then they all do athletics in the summer term, but separately.

For PE the girls do netball and gymnastics but I'm not sure what the boys do. Neither sex does football though.

avocadochocolate · 29/05/2019 13:17

In my DDs (coed comp) PE is single sex. They complain it is taught in a very sexist way. There are many sports that they would like to do that are only taught to the boys - basketball, badminton, table tennis.

The girls do lots of football, netball and rounders. (The boys never play rounders.)

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