P.E twice in one day

[Kendrickspenguin]

DS1 is going into year 9 in September. He has just been told that his two hours of P.E per week will both be on the same day. So, he will have P.E first lesson, then again after lunch.

DS is pretty cheerful about the whole thing. As long as DS is Ok I am not worried.

Have anyone else's DC had this? Were they totally fine with it? Is it terrible timetabling, or just one of those things in a busy secondary school that is trying to meet the needs of a lot of young people?

Thank you

It's pretty rubbish timetabling. In a good timetable, you try and spread the PE sessions out, as well as spreading other practical subjects through the week. It might even get adjusted before September - sometimes once the timetable is finished (particularly if it's finished this early) some effort is put into improving it by making swaps. However things like PE which often involve a half year group at once are usually the earlier things onto the timetable, so probably not.

It probably has some advantages - particularly for those who do sport out of school who will only need their kit in school once a week.

(Timetabling is hugely complex, especially if there are several part-timers. Some timetablers love the challenge of trying to get the best possible timetable - few split classes, no bitty timetables for part-timers, good spread of practical lessons through the week, no instances of the same subject twice in a day, a balance between morning and afternoon lessons for core subjects, teachers not having all their non-contact time on the same day, etc, etc. Inevitably it's pretty impossible to achieve all of these, and priorities may vary. Sometimes things can change if pointed out - we had year 11 maths last lesson Friday after having had them last lesson Friday in year 10 - we pointed this out and the lesson was swapped with one earlier in the day (for the entire school) - having checked that that wasn't going to introduce a problem elsewhere.)

Two hours in a row would seem better, I think.

This is very unusual! But I'm sure your son will be fine - I used to have swimming in the morning and then games in the afternoon. it was pretty exhausting but good in the long run

I had that in my first year of secondary (1986). First thing Monday blimmin morning (urrgh) and last thing Monday.
When we did athletics in the morning our horrible PE socks got wet in the morning dew covered grass. We then had to put the damp soggy socks on again a few hours later.
Gross.
Once our afternoon PE teacher saw us struggling with our socks and wondered why we all had damp socks. When we said we also had PE in the morning she said "what idiot timetabled that" 😂
Looking back she was a great teacher. Very jolly hockey sticks but she was nice to us.

I used to have that. The only problem was if it rained during the morning session as then the kit was wet... but they used to take our kit off us and wash/dry it. Again, a pe teacher who knew her stuff.

At the secondary dd went to they had pe once a week for 2 hours dd hated it.

At least it gets it out of the way, school PE is absolutely shit, so better only having it on one day. Then you get four days unruined!

I am in despair as our Head of Year this year is a PE teacher so we have the awful PE teaching style all the blooody time.

DS would love PE twice a day and not give a second thought to wet/sweaty kit, DD in an ideal world would schedule PE twice a decade (if that)

Thank you very much for sharing your experiences. It sounds like DS will be OK. His main worry is that he will have to take two different sets of kit on one day. I will double check that his rugby boot and trainers are both totally waterproof.

Thank you

I was like your DD 🤣 and my daughter is like your DS. In fact, PE is the only subject my daughter likes at school, whereas it was the stuff my nightmares were made of and always used to be the HUGE blemish on my otherwise stellar report card.

Same with our schopl - double PE

Ds has swimming on a Monday and then after school swimming club on the same day.

I pack an extra towel so he has a dry one.

In terms of wet socks get an extra pair and keep them in the bag just in case.

Are they allowed to wear kit into school? Getting changed twice seems crazy.

I also agree that two lesson back to back would be better but that hasn't been time tabled.

In terms of being tired your ds willl be fine!

Is he doing GCSE PE/btec sport It’s not unusual in some schools there students do this where it’s one practical lesson and one theory lesson, or one whole year sports lesson and one GCSE Pe lesson.

At my son's school they have double PE outdoors once a week, but also single PE indoors once a fortnight. Some poor groups have single PE in the morning and double PE after lunch (Double is always the pm). Fortunately this hasn't happened to my son yet but I suspect it would finish him off if it did - he loathes PE and would have to carry two different kits (trainers and boots plus two different shirts..) and get changed twice. I will look at his Y10 timetable with trepidation when it comes out 😬