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

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Shogun_X13

Thats too bad and how come people dont like doing sport, at school PE is most student favourite class

That's a common misconception by people who like PE - for some reason, they don't seem to realise that it's only people good at PE who are outgoing and enjoy exercise that like it. I hate it because:

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I'm generally unfit, and have been most of my life

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I hate sports

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I'm crap at them

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in PE, by Sod's law, you are generally allocated a partner you don't like, or your friends are off with your other friends and you're left with people you don't like

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they always choose the sports I hate

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I used to be forced to run two miles first thing on a Monday morning

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it's clear cruelty when their idea of "encouragement" is "humiliation in front of your class"

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it's not fun, it's not enjoyable, it is painful, it is pointless.

"They" being our... "teachers", if you could call them that. Funny really, they must have an average age of over 50. And they teach us **** all, they just tell us to run while they sit around with clipboards, posting our "results" (generally, time taken to do two laps of the school) on the wall. I always felt sorry for the people who got 17-18 minutes being laughed at by the people who got 7-8. I came a comfortable (but still unfit) 12-13 minutes consistently.

Reply 21

PE in school is just humiliation for those who don't want to/can't do it.

I run a few times a week and stuff now, and I'll be rejoiing the Gym niest week, so it's not that I don't like exercise. Just not a fan of playing certain sports, especially with people I don't like.

Reply 22

nettle7

P.E. was compulsary at school but in year 11 we made all kinds of excuses up and so were able to sit out... I was okay doing rounders at home but at school I would suddenly become terrified of the ball and looking stupid trying to catch it so I never tried to catch it and nobody wanted me on their team. The only thing I actually liked at school was gymnastics. I played squash- they never offered squash. They expect everybody to like the activities they like or have the facilities to be able to offer to pupils. I cycle and I walk, and find this much more enjoyable than hanging out with people I do not like in a sweaty little room taking it in turns to use the rowing machine... too little freedom.

Reply 23

Psyk

I think they should focus more on fitness rather than competitive sports. Still won't be easy to avoid the fat kids getting laughed at though.

Just for the record, I was one of the fat kids :p:

Reply 24

nettle7

You don't have to be fat to be useless at P.E. I think I am good example of that. Plus my hair used to fly around wildly, so I couldn't see anything, and I hated to tie it back because then people could see me.

Reply 25

M'Lady

paintedfolk

Agreed, I was just generally useless at PE. I only started to enjoy it when in yr11 the more atheletic (but perhaps academically stupid) students did GCSE PE and hence got split up from the performing arts students (me!) and so as a general rule I much preferred PE because I was left with people of equal ability.
It annoys me that for maths, english, languages and science we all got split up into different groups depending on how good we were at it. I'd have been quite happy to have been stuck in a foundation PE class.

Reply 26

looking_fr_SomeOne

what about parents as role models

Reply 27

pumpkin7

not suprised as at my school, in winter they forced you to do rugby in the cold and wet, and then made you roll around in the mud.

ikch.

Reply 28

becky.fm

I'm not really surprised though! At school lots of people hate PE because there always seems to be a few people who can easily out-perform everybody, making everyone else look crap. Getting changed in communial areas for any 12 - 16 yr old can be embarrasing mainly because of the comments and stares from some goons who think their better than everyone else. Also, it is rather annoying when you have PE first period, and have to sit through the rest of the day worrying that your about to smell :eek:

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If the goverment wants to improve the number of people continuing with sport after school, they should try and improve the perceptions of students and teachers of PE. More choice should be given on what sports to participate in (at my school we only get to do this in year 11). We also have other courses available e.g. self defence, JSLA & CSLA which actually means you come out with a qualification at the end of it. This means more people WANT to participate.

Sport shouldnt be seen as something to be afraid of, but lots of schools are investing in lots of new facilities to encourage sport. My school has got: a full-sized astroturf, a dance studio, a gym, a sports hall, another hall, netball courts, tennis courts and a MASSIVE field. This is generally a lot of facilities for a regular secondary school. :smile:

All these things will improve people's perceptions but i think that it needs to be the school's and teacher's way of doing things that will change that 7 out of 10 figure! :biggrin:

Reply 29

Kura1984

I was quite lucky as far as PE went at my school. We were all girls for a start and we didn't really give a damn about humiliating other people. That competitive side just never really came into the equation. However, it's also true that physical talent wasn't nurtured in the way that it should. I've found, since leaving school, that I enjoy aerobic and cardio exercise and martial arts but, at school, I was confined to playing sports that I just was not good at. This means that our school came last in almost every regional sports competition. Go figure.

Reply 30

Dalimyr

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

In my first high school, PE was compulsory until you entered fifth year (i.e. once you started doing Highers you didn't have PE at all)...I loved it, but my knees are completely ****ed. I did my best, but often found myself limping off the side halfway through a game, and would need to skip the following game just to give myself a chance to rest up. With about 3 months of fourth year left, I finally gave up trying - I admitted that my knees were ****ed and that was it, I spent the remainder of the year's PE lessons in the sidelines watching everyone else playing football or basketball or whatever. When I moved to a new area and a new school, I discovered that PE was done all the way up to 6th year - with my experience from fourth year, I knew I wouldn't manage, so I just never bothered. The ONLY time I ever got into a PE kit was for a game of five-a-side football between the sixth-years and fifth-years at the very end of the year (which, coincidentally, we won :king1:

)
But that was just with the way PE was done - with games only lasting around ten minutes, I didn't have enough time in a game to get used to the pain. At uni I had kickabouts with a few of the boys from the halls I was in and although I was in agony for a day or two afterwards, I had no problem running around for up to 5 hours - the adrenaline constantly pumping through me was enough to kill the pain in my joints, and I loved it :smile:

Reply 31

Pink Lady

I hated P.E. I was in the 'foundation' group where some of the PE teachers talked to us as if we were stupid, just because we couldn't do sports. I was so bad at tennis that while the rest of the group attempted rallies, I and 1 other girl spent most lessons just hitting balls against a wall. Embarrassing and demoralising- I blatently was never going to improve much beyond my base level, so it seemed pointless to make me do that.

The PE head was nice, but the other male teacher was evil. He actually lectured the whole year regularly (including us 'hopeless') on how we should be giving back something to the school by participating in after-school sports, but teams want good people, not someone who literally can't even kick a ball!
Also bad were the 'competitions', where all the ability groups were mixed and then broken into 30 or so teams, then every 4 mins 2 different teams would take it in turns to play a basketball etc game while the rest of the year just watched. I was so nervous for my turn.

I agree that sport is not appealing to people. Thing is, people want to get fit, not be humilated by playing a game they can't grasp. People should be able to choose to either play traditional skilled games or to pursue fitness by choosing options, as others have said, like yoga, self defence, karate etc.

I personally did a lot of walking, had dance lessons and did stuff like that, so I kept fit outside of school, although I've always been thin.

Reply 32

Dalimyr

generalebriety

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in PE, by Sod's law, you are generally allocated a partner you don't like, or your friends are off with your other friends and you're left with people you don't like

I never experienced that...I actually had more of a problem with people I didn't like being stuck on the OTHER teams - as your teammate, the most they're going to do is just ignore you and not involve you in the game...but as your opposition, they'll take the opportunity to humiliate you if they can.
One example I can think of was during basketball, where I was defending, and went up to block someone who was well over 6' tall. I'm only 5'10", so this guy dwarfed me, and just stretched his arm straight up in the air, ball in hand, so there was no way I could reach it. Not neglecting my defensive duties despite this, I kept my arms raised so he couldn't get an easy direct shot at the basket...what did the bastard do? He high-fived me then lobbed the ball over my head.

Reply 33

generalebriety

Dalimyr

Simple. When you have the ball, you throw it at his face. He bleeds and your team has the advantage. Everyone wins.

Reply 34

myrtille

What I want to know is how some people got away with dropping out of PE BEFORE they left school.... I certainly wish I could have done.

I can't see any way in which running round a field after a ball has helped my education or life in any way. Or rather, not running round and just standing back hoping a teacher didn't notice me...

There's no point in forcing people to do sport, it just makes them hate it even more.

Reply 35

NViasko

The curriculum should be amended in that more emphasis is centrated around health and physical fitness. PE and physical health is just as vital as Maths in my opinion.

Healthy mind = Healthy body.

Reply 36

generalebriety

NViasko

The curriculum should be amended in that more emphasis is centrated around health and physical fitness. PE and physical health is just as vital as Maths in my opinion.

Healthy mind = Healthy body.

No, I think you wanted to say something profound about a healthy mind and a healthy body both being important. On the other hand, you just succeeded in saying that people who are good at maths are good at sport, which I suppose would now make me the "fittest" person in my school (being the only one who is applying for maths, and getting the best results out of my further maths class of three).

I shall take it as a compliment.

Reply 37

NViasko

generalebriety

No No No - you've misunderstood.

I'm using the subject Maths as a comparison. We all know Maths (Or English, or whatever) is one of the the most important subjects in the current curriculum. Compare the amount of Maths lessons a 16 year old takes to the amount of PE lessons, and you will notice a substantial difference, with an increased mark of Maths lessons timetabled. Sport and physical fitness should be on the same level as all the other subjects deemed to be 'important' hence it should be compulsory for 16 year olds.

What I am saying, is that I am in favour of more emphasis being shifted towards the physical state and well being of individuals in today's modern society. Let's not forget the government targets with regards to combating the rising trend in obesity levels.

Physical Fitness is essential for the development of a person, generally and will also help complement other subjects, such as Maths. :smile:

Reply 38

Happyness

Played all sorts of sports in school; cricket, basketball, badminton, table tennis, football, athletics, baseball etc. Even after leaving school, i still play at a cricket club, go jogging nearly every day, and also play basketball and badminton sometimes.

Reply 39

nettle7

I think P.E. is one of those lessons you either love or hate... too many people hated it and felt it to be some unneccessary chore. I know I would rather have been doing English or History or Geography (but not Maths!!!) Part of where they went wrong was leaving out any regard for our long-term fitness. We played games and the like, but they never encouraged us to take up sports outside school, say the sports they didn't offer, even walking or cycling and educate us about the advantages of even just walking to school (something so many children are unwilling/cannot do), or talk about healthy eating and while we were all eating too much chocolate the 'health benefits' of P.E. lessons tend to go out of the window. I guess this should have been covered in P.S.E, but it wasn't as all I seemed to do there was make anti-drug posters.