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7 out of 10 school children drop out of sport by 16

Big issue in todays newspapers is that latest figures show that 7 out of 10 children will stop taking part in sport after or during school.

Around 360,000 of them will never exercise after finishing school.

Not great considering we need a new bread of youngsters with the Olympic Games of 2012 being held in the UK.

We have the worst drop out rate in Europe, while in France for example 8 out of 10 will continue to take part in sport afterwards.

Doesn't help there is a shortage of qualified sport teachers.

I can remember back at school i used to love doing P.E but yet in a class of say 25, 6 or 7 came out with an excuse they couldn't do it and as the years went more and more we're simply not taking part.

I still exercise regularly because not only its good fun but it also good health with the rising levels of Obesity.

How many of you still take part in sport after you left school, how many of you dropped out, was it a bad experience? or did you just not like sport or P.E.

Why do so few people play sport in the UK, is it lack of money from the government, should joining a sports club be made compulsory.

Whats your views on this whole issue?

Reply 1

supertramp

9

In my school PE was compulsory (admittedly only once a week and most people didn't go) right until the end of yr 13.

The thing about doing sport in school is you are embarrassed of being crap, the getting changed is a faff, you don't get a choice in what sport you want to do (we did "dance" for about half a year once, I swear. Dance! Horrible) and nobody likes getting all sweaty and then going and sitting through lessons before they can go home and have a shower.

Reply 2

username47781

OP

20

I didn't like the fact also at my school we only had 1 hour for sport every week and all the time getting changed and getting back to change again would take half the time sometimes longer because some of the other people were disruptive.

Reply 3

bobbob

11

PE was compulsary in my school until I was Year 11. I then pretty much stopped doing exercise, and I did the least possible in PE. It's not my thing, I was crap at it and the PE system helped discourage me 'cause I don't associate sport with a positive experience. I think forcing people to do it doesn't really help in the long run.

I don't find it fun, I don't find it enjoyable so I don't do it. Oh, and I'm not overweight for the record (closer to underweight than over) and no-one has ever called me fat.

Edit: Personally, I think it's just as "shocking" that equal amounts of people probably don't do maths after leaving school. But then I am biased as a mathy.

Reply 4

username47781

OP

20

bobbob

PE was compulsary in my school until I was Year 11. I then pretty much stopped doing exercise, and I did the least possible in PE. It's not my thing, I was crap at it and the PE system helped discourage me 'cause I don't associate sport with a positive experience. I think forcing people to do it doesn't really help in the long run.

I don't find it fun, I don't find it enjoyable so I don't do it. Oh, and I'm not overweight for the record (closer to underweight than over) and no-one has ever called me fat.

Edit: Personally, I think it's just as "shocking" that equal amounts of people probably don't do maths after leaving school. But then I am biased as a mathy.

I certainly agree, i think in general many more pupils are dropping out of school or education on the whole

Reply 5

Cocaine Socialist

11

Compulsory for me too, and yes there was the usual group of people (me included) who were apparently afflicted with sprained ankles for 6 years. Supertramp covered everything I think, but just to reiterate: PE lessons translate for many as ritual humiliation and will forever be tied to memories of...*shudder* the trials of adolesence. It makes sense that you would want to avoid reliving those times in any way.

Reply 6

Sorani

16

It was compulsory for me but we only ever seemed to do sports I hated.
Girls never did football and basketball (I wasn't a football fan but liked basketball) but got stuck with hockey and netball.
Some groups did swimming, which is the only thing I am genuinely good at and felt that I could do really well in, but our group never got round to it. Instead we got stuck with dance. Blech.

Also I hated how PE teachers seemed to have blatant favourites, they'd let the sportier kids pick on the less sporty (me) and put the less sporty in teams with all the horrible sporty kids who picked on them. That may have just been my experience but it really sucked.

Reply 7

hanadeka2002

If my PE teachers hadn't made doing sport such a humiliating,evil chore I might have kept it up after GCSE's.I do go running now but I don't have some fat lesbian with a moustache screaming at me to 'get a move on' or yelling at me for wearing tracksuit bottoms instead of shorts in -10 WINTER.

Reply 8

kpg

11

Sports was compulsary for us till 16 aswell. To be honest, I play a lot of sports (not as much as before) outside of school/college/university but I have to say I didn't always enjoy school PE lessons.

Reply 9

Bluelight

13

I run, play badminton and excercise reuglarly, but i didn't like PE. I didnt like the teachers and the only thing they didnt get over involved in was cross country and the bleep tests, having said that i did love hockey and tennis and lacrosse. I admit I stopped doing alot of sport before 16 because I just couldn't be bothered, i had too much work which was much more important since I have no plans of becoming a professional athlete.

Reply 10

AT82

It was compuslery at my first college so I left. :biggrin:

They learn't their lesson after that. Don't force 16 year olds to do stuff they don't want to do.

I actually dropped out of sports due to legal trickery. Lets just say I knew I wasn't there, the school knew I wasn't there, the council and government didn't :biggrin:

Reply 11

Psyk

16

It's a bit misleading to say they "dropped out". I never "dropped out" of sport because I never wanted to do it in the first place. I have never enjoyed sport and never will. I much prefered non-competitive stuff in PE (not that I particulary liked it).

Oh and btw, how many people had a lesbian PE teacher? I think it's compulsory for every school to have at least one.

Reply 12

Sazarina88

11

Psyk

Oh and btw, how many people had a lesbian PE teacher? I think it's compulsory for every school to have at least one.

I did.

Reply 13

Asriel

1

It was compulsary until the end of year 11 at our school (PE, not lesbian teachers).

I would spend many an hour trying to think up a reasonable excuse so that i could get out of it. I hated it. I couldnt really do it, I had to carry a massive bag around all day for a single hour of PE, it was too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer.

Id much rather have spent that hour doing something useful such as Maths or English

Reply 14

by-torslayshisfoe

It's only sports. Sports are the **** aren't they? :rolleyes:

Reply 15

supertramp

9

Oh and btw, how many people had a lesbian PE teacher? I think it's compulsory for every school to have at least one.

Of course. She also works at the gay bar we frequent, and thus knows more about us (and definitely us more about her) than any teacher really should.

She never told anyone I was underage, though.

Reply 16

Arminius

14

I dropped out of sport at 16. Because to be honest 4 a-levels was more than enough, I diddn't need to do some extra P.E on top of it. Allthough there was allways the possibility of joining a club.

I have allways liked sport, though i'm not a team athlete. I have never done well in team games. But i have excelled in Badminton and Athlectics. I still want to get back into these sports at Uni but havn't actually done it yet! i know i should because it is good exercise.

Reply 17

M'Lady

12

PE was compulsory for us up until the end of GCSEs. In year 8 we did 3hrs a week, years 9 and 10 2hrs a week and year 11 1hr. Personally I mostly despised of PE, mainly the activities we were forced to participate in were not of my interests and I wouldn't dare go to any afterschool or lunchtime sports for fear of rejection from "cooler" jock types. I think if there was more choice and encouragement as far as sport was concerned there would be greater participation. I really enjoyed badminton, gymnastics, trampolining, netball and swimming, however I couldn't stand athletics, football or hockey.

Now I have left school I have become more involved in sport in my own time, I cycle alot, I swim even more and I regularly ski or snowboard at Xscape in MK. I also attend a gym, which I wouldn't have done 5yrs ago.

Reply 18

TSRXShogun

6

Thats too bad and how come people dont like doing sport, at school PE is most student favourite class and we actually even argued with the teachers that the time provided about 1 hour 20mins isnt enough and yeah PE is compulsory...

Reply 19

Mog

I played alot of sport before GCSE but due to the fact i wasn't very good at rugby (very big rugby school, everything was based on rugby, was asked to play as fly-half for the school but the teacher forgot my name :biggrin:

WAHAY!)
I got put down to the lower group, I had football county tryouts as well as tennis yet i wasnt considered sporty enough to be top group worthy, cunning selection lol, they apparently put me in the bottom group to challenege the crappy kids when my parents questioned it.

Also my unbeaten squash record was ruined after i accidently hopsitalised my squash partner cause his reaction to "move out of the way" was to bend down and put his head in the way, stitches = not alot of fun. Havent played since lol. (but i was winning so its ok lol)

Stoped playing in 6th form for everything except ULTIMATE FRIZBEE due to the lack of sportsmen in our school, pretty much everyone half decent at sports went to a college because they couldn't do the A-Levels, made it difficult to find people to play with.

Im gonna take up sports again after I go to uni, getting back into it abit lately with the world cup and all.

7 out of 10 school children drop out of sport by 16

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