Not selected for P.E team

[TenacityWins]

DD plays a niche sport out of school, which the school is aware of...however, the sporty girls good at all sports get picked to represent the school in that niche sport even though my daughter has beaten them in in-school events.

Is P.E the least inclusive subject ever??? The sporty girls seem to be favoured and asked to take part in lots of events and DD feels invisible.

AIBU to ask the school what their policy is for selecting players to represent the school?

Are you saying they have a School P.E. Team who are good all rounders in all sports.

If anyone is competent in one sport but not a good all rounder I can see how they might miss the team cut if there are many all rounders competent across many sports available.

It is shit, but if that is how they do the school P.E. team you are probably unlikely to succeed as they would either need to change the whole organisation/selection criteria and instead of having one PE Team have different teams for each sporting activity which is a much higher resource overhead.

Swimming here too. There was a local primary schools gala and DD school picked 8 kids to go. Who were all on the football or netball teams and did not include any of the 5 County level swimmers that year 6 happened to have.

Seems to have been an issue in PE forever. I believe PE teachers have damaged many children's confidence in sport for life with this form of behaviour. They had the favoured sporty girls when I was at school who were in all the teams and heavily favoured during pe lessons and then the rest of us who were put down, ignored and made to feel utility rubbish and it is still going on.
This area of schools needs a serious shake up if we actually want to create healthy adults who enjoy some form of exercise. Rather than creating a population with horror stories about PE teachers , and humiliation during pe lessons which is what we currently have.

Everyone at our school refers to PE teacher being from the 70s
Except he's not old. Just lazy. Easier to pick the same 9 kids for every sport regardless of if they are good & if other kids actually play that sport

Sport teachers and Head does influence, primary school teams we found were selected from those that pay extra for holiday camps that is run by the teachers. Kids that are good but do external clubs were not selected unless run by the teachers in spare time. Parents writing weekly emails to get kids into teams and other dubious behaviours. We are not talking premiership football academies but just general kid sports for 6 to 10 years old.

@Netaporter you're my hero.

@turkeyboots This annoys me so much, especially when it's sports like swimming where there's normally very little, if any, chance to support your school. It would be different if they chose the kids who never take part in anything, but choosing kids who are already representing the school in a super popular sport is just evil.

My school would have argued that if you play a sport out of school, then the school team is an opportunity for other people to do it. This was 40 years ago, in a huge school with lots of people to select from.

On the other hand, DD's school year girls football team is exactly the same people as her grassroots football team.

Always been the case I was rubbish at pe but could swim I swam at County level and was a qualified lifeguard. Was never picked for school swimming team, we had a pool so teacher could actually see I swam and I would do lunchtime swimming club for extra training. My dm finally complained about it when pe teacher wrote about my poor ability at swimming.....

The secondary school doesn't even have a team for her sport, they basically ask students a couple of days before to attend the fixture, and my DD wasn't asked. I reckon they just ask the students they see more often.

Do I ask the school what their selection criteria is or just let this go?

@IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads I agree with this approach and I think so would most posters here as it makes sense.
The issue is, most of these stories are showing that the same kids are being picked, even if they are very successful outside of school in the same sport. The 4 girls in my daughter's year that get picked for everything are competitive dancers, but from the list of fixtures they go to, you'd think they're masters of every sport under the sun, including the school dance team.

Ha, yes, this. DH still remembers that he never got picked for school sports teams at primary school because he was rubbish at the two main boys sports of football and cricket.

But he was talented at racket sports (he went on to captain his school and university teams at both tennis and squash, travelling all over the country to play). He fell in love with his secondary school because they had no such prejudices – they held try-outs and play-offs and then picked the children who got the best results.

@TenacityWins I don't think people can give you advice unless we know what sport it is. It is obviously much easier to prove your talent in an individual sports such as athletics, swimming or tennis than if it's a team sport such as football, netball or rounders.

Yes ask the selection criteria and also mention you were surprised she wasn't selected bearing in mind she has ability and competes for X club outside school. Also ask what improvement they believe she needs to make to achieve selection especially as some without experience have been judged to be better. Watch them squirm?

I would ask by email copying the Head.

I would lay money on the PE teacher just not knowing your DC can do it.

it’s easier and quicker to just select the kids they know already can do an acceptable job.

They should find out/ask of course but it’s far more likely to be laziness/overwork than malice.

Sometimes I think decisions can also be made due to a) very pushy parents that the teacher just can’t be dealing with, so feels compelled to pick certain children so as not to get a complaint or ear bashing and b) children who are struggling in other areas, so picking them for a sports team even if not the strongest gives them some extra confidence.