PE lessons - Mixed Sets

[Staffysanddogs]

Just wanted to get peoples opinion or experience with their child about mixed PE in Secondary School.

So my child is coming to the end of Year 7 and all their PE lesson this year were split Boys and Girls, Boys would play Rugby and Girls might play Football, it was never mixed, the next term Girls would play Rugby, Boys would play Football, etc, you get my Drift. This made sense to me as the more physical sports such as Football/Rugby at that age, mixing can be quite different for Boys and Girls.

Next year, in Year 8 the school want to mix the Girls and Boys together, I'm fine with the likes of Rounders/Cricket/Gym/ Dance etc, but when it comes to the more physical sports such as Rugby/football won't this be a recipe for disaster? Girls and Boys in a scrum together does not sit well with me? 😱

My Child has come home today physically upset and does not want to do PE next term, they have told me they would rather be in inclusion than go to a PE lesson. Is this the norm for Secondary school? To split Students into sets for PE and mixed sets at that?

This isn't a WWYD or AIBU, I just generally want to know if this is the norm for secondary schools.

I thought PE was normally with your form group? What do other mixed secondary schools do PE wise?

Dd has always been in a mixed PE group. They are all non contact sports. My understanding is that there is a boy group, a girl group and a mixed group, and the mixed group is basically the kids who are not sporty. The proper rugby goes on in the boy group only, dd did touch rugby. Actually mainly she did sitting on the side and refusing to join in, but that’s a separate story.
I think you need more detail on what is actually planned before you can decide if this is something to fight back over,

I have asked the PE teacher for the curriculum for next term as the one on the website lists all the sports. It's not clear which sets do what and to be fair is really poorly laid out.

My kids are at a mixed secondary, PE is split into two sets for boys and two sets for girls.

DD has had half mixed and half single sex PE for the last 4 years. Mixed has been things like orienteering. Rugby was single sex. She enjoys the mixed PE. She has a lot of friends that are boys.

we have things like mixed netball, but not mixed rugby

I doubt it is "poorly laid out" - it is laid out to give the teachers the info they need. There is no way of laying out anything that satisfies all parents.

The info on the website is under the parents section, it's info for parents not teachers. I have now found out the "top" set is not mixed but remaining 3 sets are mixed.

From a certain age girls and boys are not allowed to play 'mixed' contact Rugby. They'll only do touch or tag Rugby. Most schools have a mixed group/s. Don't worry, the teachers will know what they are allowed to do.

It was so much easier when girls played hockey. What a shame this sport is going and contact sports are coming in. My DDs wouldn’t want to be tackled. Touch rugby is ok but football wouldn’t have been for them.

Actually my absolute worst time at secondary school in the 1970s was girls hockey - so many injuries and nothing but bruising from knee to ankles every week

Mixed PE was fine though
badminton
trampolining
swimming
squash
lifesaving
dance
keep fit
interval training

@Lunde players hit the ball. I don’t recall any of that and it’s not a contact sport. It’s sadly now unfashionable.

@TizerorFizz

Hated hockey, so vicious. Whacking people with hockey sticks whilst the teachers back was turned was a favourite activity of the class bully.

That is just poor teaching - we had staff with us. Kids do all sorts of things on a rugby (thugby) pitch. It’s pretty well known! Fouls at football aren’t pretty either. Most kids were not using hockey sticks for violence. All have football boot studs though and mistimed tackles are far worse.

I think sets for PE is ok (and sometimes they allow kids to choose which set they think they should be in, depending on whether they want serious competitive lessons or not). Mixed PE fine for non contact sports eg athletics, dance and so on. I’m SURE they won’t be doing mixed rugby or football as it just isn’t safe and as above it isn’t allowed. Even mixed netball and hockey I’d be a bit dubious about to be honest.

I had mixed PE all through secondary. We didn't play full contact sports at all, and in some of the activities we still split into gendered groups on different sides of a field/court. I think the idea that they'll be playing tackle rugby in mixed groups is well off-base.

Most schools are limiting or eliminating contact sports in general-population PE at that stage, so the bulk of activities are fine to do in mixed-sets. Creating separate sets ultimately limits scheduling options overall (it means a girl can only take PE in one or two scheduling blocks, which may conflict with another elective for example) and reinforces the "girls activities" and "boys activities" divide.

MY dc were in a co Ed comprehensive. They were in sets for PE but the sets were single sex. So Boys were in sets 1-5 and girls were in parallel sets 1-5.

I don't think mixed sex or mixed ability groups work at secondary level for sports.

Hopefully they won't be doing any contact sports, that's a real no-no.

But even the other activities may be problematic - a lot of girls won't want to 'perform' in a mixed environment, may be struggling with developing boobs, periods etc. For things like athletics, surely they'll still have to separate the sexes for the events else it'll be very unfair?

Ds was in a mixed sex PE group - the top sets were single sex, but the bottom set (entertainingly he is actually very fit and competing at high level in a non school sport, but sets were assigned solely on rugby/football ability and he hates those) was mixed. They did more diverse sports like stoolball

I don’t see why girls aren’t allowed to do “girls” sports without boys being involved.

They can. This is the age where a lot of organized sports focus shifts to co-curricular or outside of school, where almost everything is gender-segregated and each student can pursue the sport that they want. PE doesn't need to provide that, but it does need to give students broad exposure to a wide variety of physical activities and skills. And, depending on the activity that day, a set can still be divided into single-gender groups.

At DD's school they have three ability sets which are mixed sex. Once a term they have a tournament where all sets and sexes are mixed. A much stronger boy pushed my daughter over during a game of benchball and broke her arm.

@sebanna oh no your poor daughter and this is my fear.

The problem was the teacher had too many children to supervise and didn't follow the risk assessment. The children ended up pushing the ball out of each others hands when it was suppose to be non contact. Another problem is they sometimes take a sporty boy and put them in bottom set because of behaviour problems.

@AGoingConcern Mt DCs didn’t do sport outside of school at secondary level. They were not sporty snd preferred arts - drama, music and dance. We were lucky that they were at girls’ schools so didn’t have boys around in sport lessons. As a result they participated but didn’t get near football or rugby. The school was big on tennis and hockey but had loads for non team sport for non sporty types too. Plus they did loads of dance.

People with sporty dc never ever understand the position of non sporty dc. Ones who cannot hit, kick, or catch a ball are non entities. They are not on the radar of sporty dc or parents. Being useless in front of boys whilst growing up isn’t what my girls would ever have wanted. A girls school is the answer but many don’t get that lucky.

You’re making a lot of assumptions here to try to invalidate my perspective. I was very much not a sporty pre-teen or teen (I loathed ball sports to be frank), and neither is my oldest girl. I was also very small - much smaller than my fellow girls even. Being able to be in a set with all my less sporty peers doing more “alternative” activities instead of having to run around awkwardly on a pitch behind the athletic girls was a big part of the appeal for me.

My advice to OP is to pause and ask the school for more information. What activities will her DD’s year be required for to participate in, will there be options, are any contact sports being played, are the sets going to be split into boy/girl groups for certain activities, how will varying abilities and sizes (this is an age some girls are 20cm taller and 20kg heavier than other girls) be handled, etc. And of course encourage your DD to talk through her anxieties.

This trend towards cloistering away girls back into designated women’s spaces & activities is not one I appreciate. I would rather schools (and society in general) avoid it whenever practical and address the underlying problems that make co-ed spaces unwelcoming or unsafe instead.