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?

I’d rather the girls didn’t have to put up with waiting for safe spaces to come along. Unlikely to happen and girls are not cloistered away. They are vibrant human beings doing their own thing. Why should they be forced to play sport with boys if they don’t want? Ditto the boys by the way.

NO child should be left around waiting for a safe place at school. Girls can be just as vicious to each other, and same for boys. Sex-segregation isn't a substitute for appropriate safeguarding, supervision, anti-bullying efforts, or pastoral care, and it's often self-perpetuating.

Secondary school is where we prepare teens for public life, particularly the workplace. Do you really believe boys/men should be entitled to girl/woman free workplaces? If my male colleagues decide they want to take a client golfing tomorrow morning "just the blokes" and explain the men will just feel more relaxed without any women watching, does that seem ok to you? If one of my male placement students says he feels embarrassed to receive critiques from a woman should I go ahead and have him transferred to a male line manager?

Gender-segregating contact sports for actual play is entirely reasonable, and that's easily done even with mixed-gender sets. "Girls don't want to be seen exercising by boys" is not.

At school, why not? Girls schools are great. Uni prepares for work. Plus the girls meet the boys on their terms out of school. They don’t need to be gawped at in pe lessons. My DDs greatly preferred single sex. They were themselves. Most girls are perfectly kind we found. At least no ukskirting or similar ogling or comments.

DD is at a co-ed secondary. They timetable so 2 tutor groups have PE at the same time and then the girls are in one PE class and the boys in the other (tutor groups are balanced for boy/girl).

@OhCrumbsWhereNow Which makes perfect sense.

Yes, afaik that's entirely usual in mixed schools, and has been for decades.

Gender-segregating contact sports for actual play is entirely reasonable, and that's easily done even with mixed-gender sets. "Girls don't want to be seen exercising by boys" is not.

Sex segregating isn't merely reasonable, it's essential for safety and fairness beyond puberty in the majority of school sports and activities.

The feelings of girls going through puberty has also always been a completely reasonable basis for sex segregation - moreso now with ever increasing objectification and kids exposure to the nastier sides of SM, porn etc. Girls drop out of sports and other physical activity far too much, everything that can be done to reduce this should be done.

There may be a few activities which can reasonably be mixed sex (though they're more likely to be the ones done outside of school) but they're the exceptions.

I once accidentally broke someone's fingers playing rugby so not necessarily less rough!

Football should be segregation after a certain age. My DS plays football, after 11/12 it gets extremely physical.

The challenges gets really physical after 12 (at least one boy falling over every game, includes my friendly as they get carried away trying to get the ball). I would not like any DD of mine to play football with the boys.

it is completely different with things like running / gymnastics: swimming etc, but girls should have their own rankings.

https://boysvswomen.com

the link above shows how high school boy athletes would score against female Olympias (spoiler, they wipe the floor with them). Girls deserve to win prizes (even in small secondary schools) as well.

I think girls should be encouraged to choose their own comfort levels. If they are uncomfortable as adults in office environments they can make more suitable arrangements like wfh. It’s odd that if a teenage girl says she feels like she’s actually male we listen to that and validate it, but the minute she says as a girl she’s not entirely comfortable around boys in certain situations we invalidate that. Our society forces women and girls to do things they don’t want to do and calls it empowering. It doesn’t make sense.

I think girls should be encouraged to choose their own comfort levels.

They're students in curriculum lessons; they do not get to pick their own classmates. Segregation is not a solution to general discomfort around other groups of people. Students do deserve a safe environment free of harrassment or sex-based discrimination (from students, faculty, or a curriculum that designates girl vs boy activities).

By all means, go put your children in single-sex schools. At that point at least it's just PE, not "girls PE" and "boys PE." And of course ask schools how activities that may involve physical contact are handled to ensure safety if you're worried. But co-ed schools are co-ed environments and sex-based segregation should be actively limited outside of private spaces like bathrooms.

DD has been in a mixed set PE for the past two years, however they then just get grouped in single sex so no problems with strength or speed as she only competes or plays sports with other girls within her class.

DD's school was mixed PE all the way through, and it never seemed to be a problem. There was one block when they did a lesson of rugby and a lesson of hockey and then chose - the rugby group did end up being all boys. In KS4 there was some grouping by ability, and that seemed far more useful than by sex/gender.

In your typical year 9/10 class, you'd probably find that the largest and smallest kids are both boys. Small/non-sporty boys probably benefit considerably from mixed PE.

Sensible PE kit can help. I was not impressed when DD's school changed to a very "fitted" style of PE top - what a way to emphasise differences in development. Loose fitting tops and tracksuit bottoms (if they want) seem best.

“Small/non-sporty boys probably benefit considerably from mixed PE”

I think that is obvious- they then don’t have to compete with the bigger and stronger boys and can feel that they are doing great, but do the girls benefit from it?

Football in tracksuit bottoms?

Msny girls are self conscious about their bodies. Some girls don’t like sport. For generations we have kept the sexes separate for sport at co Ed schools.Who complained? Why now are girls being forced to accept boys in every possible aspect of their lives at school? Loos and now sport! Who actually wants this? A minority might but many don’t. I guess it means less work for pe teachers but I’m with @ErrolTheDragon - it’s not good enough for the girls.