Girls having rugby and football as some of main PE sports

[Summer1912]

Seems strange to me the girls at both local secondaries follow same pe curriculum as boys so have no choice not to do rugby or football. Even several boys at the open day didnt want to do rugby.

It would be fine to have them as extra curricular etc but as a non negotiable seems rubbish, bearing in mind no swimming. I dont think they offer rounders or tennis etc.

DD hates football anyway, played in primary PE. And possibly the hatred is so much because in primary it is obviously both boys and girls so many of the girls dont really join in.

Shes already refusing to have any football boots.

What is interesting though is her Grandad said that back 70 years ago at a boys only secondary modern they only did gym no other PE. The other sports were outside of class time.

They will be set for PE so I imagine she will be bottom set and in fact they probably wont play the sports properly.

My sporty son hated doing rugby at school and I can only imagine how my daughter will feel when she starts secondary school. I don't know what the answer is but it seems girls are always forgotten or ignored when it comes to physical differences.

Are the boys having to do netball and dance or similar too?

Football is now becoming the mosybpopukar sport for women to participate in and its great to see schools being forward thinking about it

As a non sporty woman, rugby was pretty much the only sport I ever really enjoyed. The ball is large and easy to catch, it’s quite organised, and it’s easy to play as touch rugby or with low contact.
I’d think it would be pretty normal to have them as standard, though I’d expect tennis in the summer. Don’t know if schools do much rounders at high school - mine only seemed to play it much at primary but that’s only our experience.

Is the rugby contact or can they choose to do non contact rugby?

And yes, what other sports do they do?

DD's did football and hockey iirc, also netball basketball & athletics.

I wouldn't be happy with contact rugby.

Why shouldn't football and rugby be offered?

As PPs say, it depends on what else is offered. If they were the only sports available, I would agree this was rubbish (but I would say that about any 2 sports offered). At DC's school they include football and rugby but also netball, hockey, tennis, rounders, athletics, volleyball, gym, handball ...

As long as they did netball for both semester I'd be fine about insisting dd did the football and rugby. Resumably uts fairly low/non contact if they are totally new to it.

At my DC's schools, boys and girls all do football, rugby, cricket, hockey, dance, ... DD is very sporty and loves it! DS less so.

Posted too soon...

Touch rugby up to Y9
Neither of my dc have ever played netball at school as far as I know. Both have played basketball. Both doing rounder and athletics at the moment (Y6 middle school, Y10 high school).

At DDs school all the groups do the same sports rotation (including rugby and netball) but in single sex groups.

When I was at school in the 90's we had to do bloody dance and netball!! No choice. I despised both. The boys got to do football and rugby. It was so unfair. All I wanted to do was play football. I loved football. I liked the idea of rugby, but being a girl never got the chance to play. We also had to wear hideous leotards with a 'gym skirt' over the top. The boys wore baggy T-shirts and football shorts.

That was winter. In the summer, we all got to do athletics. That was fine. We all did cross country in the winter. Also fine.

Good, I passionately hated dance and trampolining and felt pissed off that there wasn't more physical sports for me

Winter sport was hockey. I'd probably have taken no touch rugby or football. Given a choice. Can't hurt more than a hockey stick on shins. And the boots are like football boots anyway.

Tennis in the summer but depends if they have room for courts I suppose.

There wasn't really choices tho, you seem to think DD should be able to pick her choice of sports.

What she needs to do is the same for Maths. She's I na lesson, she takes part. There's penalties for refusing to do the work or not wear the correct uniform etc.

I hated netball with a passion. I wanted to play football ⚽️ but was literally laughed at and told 'football is for the boys' .
We played hockey, which was fine, but on the overlong grass, where the ball ran 3ft if you were lucky.

Good. I was forced to do netball and dance. We had to do dance barefoot on the nasty verruca haven sports hall floor. The only fun girls sport was trampolining until you realise you only get 10 seconds on the trampoline unless you're the PE teachers favourite.
Saying that, it should be varied. I personally think PE should just be core fitness skills as it's only 2hrs a week. Fitness class type of thing. That would help so many more kids than a miserable game of rugby or netball. Sports games should be clubs after school for those that want to do them.
Before anyone criticises me, no I don't think exposure to the sport in PE increases participation. It's mostly taught in a rubbish way, not often enough and if anything, it puts many kids who aren't already sporty completely off organised sport.

School sports lessons are hideous and largely counterproductive, no matter which sport they play, surely? The whole thing needs a massive overhaul, with some modicum if understanding of basic human psychology applied, to drag it kicking and screaming into the 21st century and stop it putting kids off fitness for life.

Shes already refusing to have any football boots

Does she also refuse safety goggles in science, or an overall in art, or a calculator in maths?

Rounders maybe under field sports i guess.

Tennis definitely doesnt seem to be listed, but then there are 200+ per year group at both local school so couldnt really be possible. There is badminton.
In terms of boys and girls the both do exactly the same. So yes boys having gym and dance.

One year the kids have both netball and basketball.
I'm pro girls being allowed to do rugby and football but anti having to.
the school dd is allocated has very few extracurricular sports.
Badminton, rugby and football. For the rugby it specifies girl and boy, but the football on every day does not. It may be that that might separate if the numbers allow but its frankly a crap selection.

re having to do it, in theory yes. But having asd referral, i think similar to primary she just wont do any PE. She is also not doing music etc and hard to get her to do maths. Even less likely to do dance than football.

overall it feels like that one school has forgotten girls might not want to do the same. Ties, football, rugby, trousers as uniform (no option)
Im a tom boy so would have loved trousers as uniform, and both DD wear them at primary, however they are pretty much the only girls to do that.

Half a term of touch rugby at school totally ignited a passion in my team-sport-hating DD. She now plays on a local team and trains twice a week.

I’m not sure I understand your argument OP. There’s never been a choice (in my experience) of what kids do in PE, they just rotate through set activities for the year. Football boots were part of the school uniform list when I was at an all-girls’ school many years ago!

I hope they’re offering a balanced programme of sports. Secondary school was so much better for my very unsporty DS. They’re streamed into sets and he’s in the ‘bottom’ set but it’s absolutely the best place for him- they get to try all the different sports but at a different pace and with my less emphasis on competition than the higher sets. Sports are put on rotation so no sport is done for longer than a few weeks. My DS has been much more receptive to trying new sports as a result.
I wish they’d had more sports when I was at school. We had to do endless dance and gymnastics- I hated it and was useless at it. As a result for years I thought I wasn’t ‘sporty’ but now I’m an adult I’ve tried different sports and realised I just hadn’t found my sports when I was at school.

Every student should be offered as wide a range of sports as the school can make possible. Limiting choices based on gender doesn’t help anyone.

OK - so your daughter refusing to do PE because of her ASD puts a rather different perspective on this. You can't expect a school to organise their entire PE schedule around what your individual child will do.

Also - it sounds like your DC is not actually at the school yet, so maybe wait and see how it pans out (for example, the entire year group will not be doing PE at the same time) in reality? The information is unlikely to give you a complete picture (and if anything like my DC's school, changes frequently anyway).

Doing a half term of Rugby ignited a passion for my DD who now plays for our local team. It wasn't even on my radar before.

DD also has ASD and as a sport it is fantastic for her as it has very clear rules, the ball is large and pretty easy to catch, the physicality of it is great for getting the 'grrrs' and general frustration out too. I also like rugby as its very inclusive of body type, there is a place for the small nippy ones but also for larger less athletic players too.

You'll have to find out why she won't change for PE though, is it the noise of the changing room? If so she should be able to access an accessible toilet/ changing room to change.

My son LOVED rugby and there were fewer boys than girls in his year so if you could stand you played rugby.
Girls didn't but both played hockey, cricket and football.
Occasionally a girl would play on boys team - more common with hockey but at least one girl played contact rugby - ooof!

So the issue is there's none of the specific sports she'd like to do because of ASD. I'm not sure the school are at fault here. What sports would she do?