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.

The Women’s World Cup starts next month, OP. Why not get your DD watching some of the England matches, show her that it’s a normal sport for women, tell her England won the Euros last year, and that it’s school football that generates the stars of the future.

Echo all of this for rugby. Really body-positive and I love that they’re encouraged to be powerful and just the right amount of aggressive. DD’s club has an excellent women’s section that’s really well supported and nurtured by the club itself (unlike our local cricket club where the women’s team is an afterthought).

"I'm pro girls being allowed to do rugby and football but anti having to."

I'm not sure it works like that OP. It sounds like this school has a pretty balanced approach and expect all genders to have exposure to sports. Your daughter will have to do a lot of things she may not want to do in school, if you're not happy with that it's best to home ed. You can't pick and choose what part of the curriculum she does just because of what she likes. That would cause chaos if everyone did that.

I’d have liked to do more football, not just bloody netball every time. Not sure what people mean re physical difference? How would that affect girls playing football against other girls?!

I'm confused too. Netball can get so vicious! More so than football ime.

Reading this makes me very glad I had the ability to choose a sporty independent school for my dd. All the girls do all the sports. Football is ace.

It sounds like the OP has that choice but doesn't like it.

You can't manage a secondary school's curriculum so that your child doesn't have to do things she doesn't want to do. One of the big changes when you go to secondary is the breadth of opportunities that they are exposed to.

It's best for the children to start with their parents having a positive attitude towards what they are going to get the chance to experience. She might not like it. My dd hated chemistry. So I'd say 'never mind, at least you have drama after that to look forward to'.

Boys and girls do the same sports at our school too like football, rugby, basketball and badminton. I hated PE at school (especially cross country) but understand why there's a variety because you can't design a PE lesson that everyone will enjoy.

My son was middle set but said that the lower set did a lot of appealing sports like bench ball.

Why is it strange ?

I think it is an excellent improvement in the PE curriculum from back in the day.
It is great that youngsters get introduced to a whole range of sports and physical activities. No, not everyone will enjoy all of them, in the same way lots of people don't enjoy algebra, or singing, or spelling, or dissecting things, or reading out loud, but I don't think anyone goes through school (or life) enjoying every aspect of every day, but you just get on with it and look forward to the next lesson or the next half term, when you are doing something you enjoy more.

I was at school in the 90s and the girls did rugby and football, this isn't a new thing

Yes- I didn't have to meet people like the OP trying to get out of sport and moaning about having to do it.

I'm so confused. Are you trying to say you never had girls in your class moan about PE? Or that your DD isn't exposed to people like that because she's at an independent sporty school?

Noone moans about sport. Everyone just does it.

I managed to get injured playing netball at primary school, but survived seven years of it at secondary intact. Not so hockey (direct-ball-on-kneecap incident on the afternoon of Princess Anne's first wedding) or lacrosse, about which I felt that that it being the French women's national game and that the American Indians used to play it to the death said it all, really. I'd have loved the opportunity to play something relatively safe like rugby.

Seriously, though, it really does sound as if the issue here is more the problems that the OP's DD as an individual has with PE / games generally?

Again, confused who's school you're talking about. Yours or your daughter's?

Trousers compulsory for all is a brilliant idea given the belts that the girls wear to my DC’s school 😳😬.

Realise that’s not your question but still 🤷‍♀️😄

Football and rugby are girls sports though OP.
At school, home and work, doing subjects/things you don’t like is part of life.
I don’t like housework but I still have to do it.
I don’t like one particular aspect of my job but i realise it’s a requirement so I do it.

DD is at a all girls school and they have a very active and succesful football team. It seems girl/women football really made it mainstream and I am glad about it.

They don't do rugby but otherwise it was gymastics, athletics, netball, badmindton, tennis, hockey and rounders. Most sports were taught from holiday to holiday, so not really more than 6 weeks each time and then rinse and repeat over the years.

Dance is taught as a separate subject.

Outside scheduled PE classes they had football, netball and hockey clubs in the afternoon.

I think this is great. It’s equality. Whatever is on offer both sexes should be able to do the sport. Boys should have access to gymnastics and girls football etc.

the lionesses have fought to get equal sports access for girls to PE subjects.
swimming, tennis, netball etc, let both genders play.

The obvious solution would be to ask the students what sports they’d like to play.

I'm a complete duffer at anything sporty and ended up loathing every single thing we did in PE (because of bullying for being a duffer), but still had to do them.

I still think I'd have had more of a chance at cricket (short bursts of activity, you can get away with not being amazing) and always wanted to have a go at rugby (as what I lacked in any skills I'd haveade up for with aggression and a chance to whack a smug sporty girl. Same reason I was always picked to bully-off in hockey). But not allowed as they were not sports when I was at school.

It's great that children get to try a wider range now.

Surely this is totally normal in 2023?!

Boys and girls did all sports (football, netball, rugby (touch) dance, gym, tennis, badminton etc) at my secondary school in the 90s.

Op girls & boys are seperate for high school PE

Our secondary has changed in the past five years. When my daughter was in year 7 and 8 girls didn't do cricket or rugby, just netball and rounders. They've now changed it and girls do cricket and rugby (but only touch - boys get a choice of touch or contact).

What I do find annoying is they've brought in "boys sports" for the girls but not "girls sports" for the boys. The boys still don't do trampolining, dance or gymnastics. My ball-hating son would much prefer any of these to endless rugby, football and cricket.

Also in junior school they play mixed netball but once they go into secondary boys never get to play netball.