Girl's experiences of PE

[WarriorN]

The gap between the proportion of boys and girls in England who enjoy PE lessons is widening, a survey suggests.

Some 59% of girls in secondary schools who responded to a Youth Sport Trust survey said they liked PE or liked it a lot, compared with 84% of the boys.

Obviously I have questions about the survey design in terms of "identity as girls etc" but it seems that it's more important than ever to preserve single sex access to sports / physical activity, as well as more ways to engage girls in sports/ physical activities.

Drop in how many girls like PE, Youth Sport Trust study suggests www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-67063845

One PE issue was not being excused when I had really bad period cramps. Hated that. If I’d just been allowed to skip PE and do a bit of study in the library when I had period cramps, that by itself would have improved my view on it.

PE should be about moving your body, not competition.

There's not a universal solution imo. Some girls are always going to dislike PE, even if they have nice teachers who do good lessons. Just like some girls are always going to hate maths, French etc. Knowing that exercise is important and good for you is not sufficient motivation to make lots of adults want to do it, never mind teenagers!

Since my Dd started team sports (out of school, I agree without the comment about money above, none of their clubs are free) I’ve learned to appreciate the benefits of team sports for girls more. DD1 until recently wasn’t particularly assertive so it was good for her to have a space where she was supposed to get in the way (netball defender). She doesn’t have to be in the club so she’s not being made to do something she doesn’t want to but it’s been really good for her to have a space where she’s “permitted” to go against what someone else wants.

Possibly, but that doesn't explain why. In some ways it's counter-intuitive because whenever the PE threads come up on MN, the consensus seems to be that the problem is team sports and that if they could all do yoga, zumba/ dance and weights, they'd all love it, but IME private schools are more likely to majorly focus on team sports/ competitive matches than average. Possibly it's that private schools have lower teacher: pupil ratios so are able to do more differentiated teaching and because matches are in school time everyone has to be included? I don't know.

I also disagree with pp that team sports are expensive- team sports are about the cheapest ECAS you can do- DD's rugby is 140 for the season which is 2x 1.5 hr training a week for 8 months. Netball is 120 for one indoor training session, tournaments and matches included. Kit is cheap and easy to buy second hand from the older girls. Compared to doing yoga, martial arts or dance lessons it's very affordable.

Money also doesn't explain the gap between boys and girls. I do wonder if some of it is expectation bias- boys say they like sport even if they don't because there's greater social capital attached to it, whereas for girls it's the opposite, and on that, potentially there's greater variation in social capital being attached to sporting prowess for girls than for boys and it's more school dependent - I'm just thinking aloud here, but I do sense that generally sporty boys are perceived as cool by their peers whereas sporty girls sometimes are and sometimes aren't.

I'd also be interested to see if there's a difference between girls who attend all girls schools and girls who attend co-ed schools.

Anyway, just musing.

https://chng.it/rQPphZpzhq

Please sign this petition to make school sports less about competition and more about fitness.

I hated it. I would do whatever I could to avoid it and used to feel sick and awful the night before.

It's a shame because as a child I spent vast amounts of time outdoors, on my bike and loved roller skating, ice skating and swimming. So did plenty of activity and exercise informally. PE was just stress with no benefit to my confidence or fitness levels.

At primary I was made to do pe just in my knickers, not even a vest. I would have been year 3 or 4.
In secondary we used to hang a coat over the keyhole of the door that separated the boys and girls changing rooms and the door was constantly hammered on by the boys.

As an adult I have rediscovered forms of exercise and active pass times that I love

Another PE hater here too, generally. In primary I actually quite enjoyed it tbh but secondary was mostly grim. All girls secondary. I at least could wear jogging bottoms instead of gym knickers and pleated mini skirt, due to religious reasons. Lots of the other girls were so jealous that they weren't allowed to. It was ridiculous.

I do remember odd bits that I enjoyed - we did a short course of dance in yr 7 that I remember enjoying; a short self-defence course, with an external instructor contracted in, I think that was yr 9? Also occasionally did yoga in year 11 which I enjoyed. But team sports and athletics, nooooo thank you.

I wasn't unfit as I was going to the gym regularly during yr 10 & 11 and beyond and enjoyed that. Just still hated it. I'm not competitive at all so that's probably part of it tbh as there was usually a strong emphasis on competition. After leaving school I continued on and off to do things I did enjoy: gym, learnt to swim, learnt to ride a bike, pole fitness, aerial fitness, yoga, pilates, aerobics...we did none of those things at school.

Thanks for this @Teainthesun

I absolutely loved PE in Primary School; super sporty I was Captain of both the Netball and Rounders teams. I swam twice a week and have a '2 miles' badge. Came 3rd in the county for high jump!
I got to secondary and it was awful; stinky, badly taught, confusion, lots of standing around in the cold, boys being pita's, cold showers and period difficulties.
I gave it all up as soon as I possibly could and have never gone back to it.
In today's world I should think it's even worse for girls and the lack of privacy is unforgivable.

At the beginning of year 7, PE started with 'we're playing netball, grab a bib and make a start'. Lovely if you've played netball before and understand the rules but if you don't? I just thought fuck that and sat down at the sidelines. If the teacher couldn't be arsed to teach me then I couldn't be arsed to take part. It soon became clear that they couldn't give a toss about anyone other than the really sporty ones and was just humiliation for a lot of us.

It really pisses me off when people say that competitiveness in PE is good for those who aren't academic as they have a chance to shine but that's bollocks as the clever kids never got an opportunity to be recognised.

The only good thing I can say about secondary school PE is that it's the reason why I got the opportunity to do what turned out to be my favourite subject. In year 8 you could do latin instead of one PE lesson so naturally I jumped at the chance and absolutely fell in love with it.

My experience of PE (80s) was total humiliation. Getting changed in front of the whole class (plus PE teachers), cold, smelly changing rooms, wearing a very short skirt (with associated comments from girls and boys about my skinny, white legs), outside in all weathers with no option to wear warmer clothing. No attempt to actually teach me how to improve fitness or technique. Nastiness from other pupils about my lack of ability, which was encouraged by teachers. Totally put me off sports.

My DD's experience was slightly better, but she still complained about having to wear uncomfortable clothes and having no option for warmer clothes in the winter. PE still seems to focus on the same few sports, and there still seems to be no real attempt to teach the less sporty children how to improve. She really enjoys (and is quite good at) some non-competitive sports she does outside school but I think this is despite school PE. At school, it still seems to be the case that the sporty children get all the attention/focus in PE lessons, and those who are not on the school teams etc are left to just do their own thing.

I really think that if we want more children (girls and boys) to become adults who exercise regularly we need to make school PE fun for everyone. I can see no reason not to have an 'elite' PE class for the school teams etc and 'fun' classes for everyone else (with an emphasis on trying various sports and encouraging improvements in fitness levels).

At the beginning of year 7, PE started with 'we're playing netball, grab a bib and make a start'. Lovely if you've played netball before and understand the rules but if you don't? I just thought fuck that and sat down at the sidelines. If the teacher couldn't be arsed to teach me then I couldn't be arsed to take part. It soon became clear that they couldn't give a toss about anyone other than the really sporty ones and was just humiliation for a lot of us.

This is what got me too. The rules were never explained but somehow everyone seemed to know what they were doing. Rounders, netball, hockey, it was all the same.
I felt like I'd missed the lesson where they explained about how to play! I was in a constant state of bamboozlement.

Doing C25K at school would have made such a big difference. I discovered it in my 40s & realised that it didn’t matter if I was the slowest runner ever, as long as I was running. I did a half marathon which I could never have imagined doing as a kid.

Weight training would have also been fantastic, though I can see the practicalities would be difficult.

I hated netball because I’m short, but at least hockey was all on the ground, & hockey backs didn’t need to run much.

I was firmly in the don't like group at school for many reasons, some mentioned here.

My school was fixed, netball and hockey in winter, tennis and rounders in summer. I wasn't naturally good at any of these and was never taught how to improve, whereas the natural ability girls got encouraged all the more.

I hated undressing in front of my peers, I hated having to strip off for communal showering, and it was literally a walk through shower lasting seconds, I hated that I was still sweaty and smelled and had manky hair for the rest of the day.

As an adult I feel sad that this was my teenage experience of sport. I became overweight as a young adult, believing that I hated all sport and was no good at it. When in fact, mid-20s onwards I discovered other forms of exercise that I'm naturally good at, and became skilled at, and very healthy because of. If only school had had the foresight to offer different forms of exercise.

I think a wider curriculum is needed for school sports to enable more girls to really enjoy it. Thinking of the teenage girls in my life now, one is a dance fanatic and one loves gym classes - if only there was a way for school to authorise reporting and grading to come from an external source for subjects like sport, these two would excel.

Not read full thread, but I didn't like PE because I've always had big boobs and although I've never had any grief for it from other students - which I know definitely does happen and must be another deterrent - it makes lots of sports uncomfortable and painful even with a really good bra. It makes a huge difference to how much you enjoy physical activity. I only really enjoy swimming and low impact stuff even now.

When I was at primary school we had to change in the classroom with the boys - even in year 6. Guess who was the first in the class to need a bra & have periods. That was fun.

I would have loved PE more if we had done:

Dance
Swimming
Archery
Rock climbing/abseiling
Yoga
Self defence such as karate

Not hockey, netball gymnastics and all that boring bollix girls were forced to do

I think this is probably right, unfortunately. Though some private schools have a very strong ‘everyone must do traditional team
sports’ ethos, a lot know that they need to cater to their customers and adapt the curriculum to ensure that parents aren’t get moaned at by their DC three times a week because PE is so awful.

I suspect it’s mostly resources (enough staff, being able to attract excellent people who love teaching as well as sports, ability to buy in outside specialist teaching as needed) but also just that private schools don’t have to stick to the National Curriculum and can be more flexible.

My dd has always hated team sports but, now she’s older, was able to negotiate with the PE Dept for use of a suitable space to dance and permission to use her phone for dancing music for an hour once a week. By doing that, they’ve kept her active, and they do randomly pop a head around the door, and always find her dancing or stretching.

Interesting thread, my memory of PE is Jane Fonda work outs and basketball with a lot of girls who where national level athletes!

My son is studying PE, he attends a mixed school. There is always three options, a competitive game, a workout usually circuits and a low impact fully accessible option.

The school offer girl only sports option but find the majority prefer the mixed. For context these older teens are together since probably about age 4.

They do study biological and social aspects that can impact engagement so hopefully this will mean an improved experience for all.

This is in Ireland and PE is a recent subject added to our leaving cert which is equivalent to your A levels.

It can be made both useful and a subject all kids enjoy some of the time. It just takes a bit of thought. For example, one school I know of made substantial changes following surveys of parents and pupils.

Every child learned first aid, eventually gaining an accredited cert on leaving school. Aside from compulsory daily non-competitive run, pupils were offered a lot of choice in junior years, with some alternatives to traditional team sports, such as rounders or dance. (Rounders proved so popular and the kids made so many friends with others in team that they had to expand it). Clothing was practical and warm and as covered up as you chose.

Senior years could opt out of PE - very few did. This was a private school with small gym so many pupils who were not into team sports used that or joined in loud raucous mixed sex , no ability required dance/aerobics sessions run by young cheery popular members of staff - not always PE team. Additionally, for those enjoying team sports, teams for varying levels of ability were introduced with external coaches brought in , sometimes parents.

In short, they took the fear out of PE and catered for all abilities and tastes. They got the message in early that it’s all about getting out of puff for mental and physical health and that you can enjoy yourself.

many pupils who were not into team sports used that or joined in loud raucous mixed sex

Not sure what that was meant to say but probably not that

What I learned from school PE lessons was that I was shit, my body was shit and there was no point trying because I would always be shit. Took me 20 years to unlearn what they taught me and discover that physical activity could be enjoyable and that you get better if you do more of it.

Research in Wales found that a lot of secondary schools are offering mixed sex PE as default, presumably as a way to get round the 'what do we do with the trans-ID and non binary kids'. I would imagine that's a factor in girls disliking it more than boys do. Purgatory for the self conscious, demoralising for the girls who are actually athletic to be constantly outperformed by perfectly mediocre boys. Probably quite a nice ego boost for the not-very-good boys.