"There is a clear rationale for mixed sex PE lessons"

[BonfireLady]

Apparently.

If a school were to hypothetically respond with this ridiculous statement when a request is sent to them to reintroduce single-sex PE lessons, are there any websites or documents that posters on this board would recommend to dispute it? Ideally from sporting bodies or other official sources.

It doesn't matter either way whether the information is about gender identity or not. The question relates to single sex sport, regardless of whether students have a gender identity that differs from their sex or not.

Isn't there a wealth of info about girls.dripping out of sport at high school because of self-consciousness, bodies changing etc?

Now add in a load of pubescent teen boys looking at you running or jumping & discussing your changing body on top.

No fecking way.
It's because of staffing & cost. Bet you £100 be cause this isn't in any of the pupils interest.

In our single sex PE lessons back in the 90s we played sports obviously but we also:

• had lessons about period products and puberty
• learnt about physical health including being weighed, measured and using calipers to measure body fat
• most important of all we did self defence lessons, the female PE teachers taught us techniques to break free if we were grabbed by the wrist or round our neck. They provided guidance about walking alone in the dark, red flags to look out for in behaviours. They were clear that they were teaching us how to survive if we were attacked by a man, it was very explicitly and specifically knowledge and techniques for females because of male behaviour.

@SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice
In a case like that, the girl(s) could join the boys' class. PE teachers are adept at organising their classes for different ability levels, or even different ages if it's a small village school for example where kids of all ages have to be taught together.
If it's impracticable to have a separate girls' football class, they can play with the boys while the other girls do dance. Most important is that everyone is doing the activity they enjoy and as a pp said, that girls are judged against girls.

Getting to love sport is crucial for carrying on in later life.

Yeah, unless the activism to prohibit mixed sex PE lessons results in that not being allowed. That’s why I prefer to allow mixed sex PE lessons as well as single sex PE lessons and focus on how to keep girls safe and not directly competing boys vs girls either individually or by team sports.

Dance is in the "creative" rotation not PE at my DCs school... PE is Single sex but they cover all the sports (including Rugby, the girls rugby team is quite successful). Dance is mixed.

The girls definitely prefer single sex PE fir contact sports

Swx-based performance differences in various athletic events. Note that the age at which boys overtake (mostly age 14) is not the age at which they overtake their peers in age and experience, it's the age at which they overtake elite women. So they will overtake their classmates much sooner.

https://x.com/JanSwatridge/status/1849782802625003835?

Yes, I agree any competitive sport should be separate, but like you say, dance can be mixed.

Our school has 2 single sex PE groups and 1 mixed sex non competitive group in each year. Seems to work OK.

That sounds perfect.

That's an interesting approach. Is the contact sport in the single sex and everything else mixed, or is it broken down differently?

I can believe that there might be "clear rationale" for some mixed sex PE lessons. But a blanket approach, no.

DD's secondary school distinguishes between Games and PE. Games is team sports, is done by the whole year at a time and they are split by sex. PE is individual activities more (yoga, running) and is done in the same group as they do the rest of their non-streamed classes.
This seems to make a lot of sense to me. The girls aren't in physical danger from the stronger boys, the mix of activities means that it includes several that girls may have more experience in and so won't be dominated by boys being seen as the best, it gives them an opportunity to see each other and work together outside of the traditional academic subjects where different people will struggle and excel and it is easier for a timetabling purpose which has benefits both for staffing and for meaning they are allocated both an indoor and an outdoor space so can swap depending on the activity and the weather.

Dance was the only mixed sex "sport" at the two secondary schools I attended! (One British military school abroad and one Scottish High school). Couldn't possibly have a girl leading...

Girls played hockey, boys played rugby. We all did cross country but girls went clockwise, boys counter etc. Everyone did athletics but separately.

I was an excellent cross country runner (my dad ran marathons for fun and made me train with him regularly) and in my first year of secondary, I could beat most of the boys in my year. It didn't last long at all. The biggest issue for me though was more the comments. We had to do games in gym knickers with t-shirts tucked in and the comments from the boys were brutal. Hockey was my favourite as the boys were on the other side of the school playing rugby and we could wear hockey skirts.

It's stuff like that that makes me profoundly grateful that my daughter and I went to girls' schools. My husband and son went to boys' schools too, as it happens. PE as 'taught' in the 1970s was awful enough without adding sexual harassment into the mix.

Is anyone wanting to ban mixed sex PE? I think what is being said is that because of the potential downsides for girls and the disparity in athletic performance, they should have the choice of single sex PE - if practicable

I think it's fine for cricket or rounders or sports that compete with mixed teams, like hockey.

I believe contact sport is only done in single sex groups, rugby certainly is. The mixed group does football, dance, fitness, rounders.

@froomeonthebroom how do they decide who is in which group?

When I was in secondary school, I felt we had a good system. There was a girls gym teacher, and a boys, and some things we would do together as a group, and others we would do separately.

In general we were together where it was more individual work (circuit training), and separate for things like team sports or track. Sometimes with things like tumbling mixed sex was an advantage.

There was a little crossover, the girls group did a dance segment, and the boys didn't, and there were a few boys who wanted to do do dance and so joined us.

I've always felt they managed it really well.

This is how it's done at my DCs' secondary. I believe it's decided by ability although I'm not sure how they assess it or whether they take children's preferences into account. This is from Year 8 onwards, Year 7 is mixed sex.

I have some relatives whose school has this system. They promise the girls that no girl will get put into the mixed-sex group two years in a row and the girls complain bitterly when it happens anyway. So that sounds great…

As far as I know it's done by ability. (I'm a TA and I don't work in PE so not 100% certain)