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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Kids and PE
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
These days teachers, even PE teachers, have to have learning objectives for every lesson, and the planning should also include differentiation. The original lesson objectives that caused the issue will have been teaching certain strokes in table tennis, because the middle group of the class are at that stage. The more able students will be able to extend themselves by including those strokes into a game. The problem is that the PE teacher will have 30 odd students in the class, and nobody spare to help the 5 who really can't keep up with the schemes of work.
Those 30 odd students will include several who will regard a table tennis bat as a helpful weapon to use in various unsafe ways, and those who are so uncoordinated as to be dangerous. If I was that PE teacher, it would be a higher priority ensuring that that no-one is damaged by anyone else, rather than someone struggling and not succeeding, as you're more likely to deal with a complaint from a parent whose child was hit around the head by a table tennis bat, accidentally or otherwise.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Walk around the room balancing the ball on the bat, and keeping it on the bat all the time.
Stay in one place, bouncing the ball a little on the bat, aiming for a specific number of bounces without dropping it. Build up the height of bounces until at eye level.
Bounce the ball between the table surface and the bat a set number of times.
I'd want next to be bouncing on a vertical surface, but not sure how the gym could accommodate that. Perhaps sitting, as in the next one, to prevent running around after the flipping thing.
In pairs, sitting on the floor with legs apart, bounce the ball between the bats, with a bounce on the floor in between hits.
Hey, I can still do this sort of thing!!!
Perhaps there could be special special needs pingpong balls which are thicker and heavier and slower?
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
But that's teaching ball handling skills at primary school. Karl's son is at secondary school where these skills are assumed to have been learned at primary school.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
But that's teaching ball handling skills at primary school. Karl's son is at secondary school where these skills are assumed to have been learned at primary school.
But, like literacy beyond the alphabet and the ability to understand fractions, it often isn't grasped at that stage, and some practical provision is required for those who have fallen through the net.
I am tempted to go back to my point that we all have bodies and we all have to relate to the physical world, preferably pleasurably, and at least in a way that doesn't cause anyone pain. Thus, the ability to deal predictably and confidently with balls (at least of a sporting nature) seems to me a lifeskill, because other things can come flying towards one, and the ability to manage them would be very advantageous.
Being musical, I do appreciate by analogy at least that it is equally important for those with a real talent in this area to be inspired to develop it, and indeed helped to do so. They can't be entirely frustrated in this by those of us to whom a ball flying towards us represents, in our mind at least, a mortal threat.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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Bob Two-Owls
Shipmate
# 9680
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Posted
I really liked sport but hated PE, the two things became entirely separate entities to this young Bob. My problem was that I could punt an egg between two posts, drop a little hard ball down a small hole from miles away, crack a sly six off the leg-side or slide a biscuit through the netminders knees but I can't dribble a football. This meant long hours trying to keep a football on the same field as my feet while others were playing games that I could actually do. Five years of this destroyed my interest in any kind of sport and I haven't played competitively since.
Schools should stick to basic exercise for the compulsory part, getting the blood pumping and allowing the brain to change down a gear (or up, depending on your school experience). No one should be forced to play a sport they can't do, they should be encouraged to find the best sport they can do.
Posts: 1262 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Schools these days give young people 6 week blocks of a range of different sports. I bet none of you over 30s learned table tennis in school, or Zumba, which one of my Guides is currently doing. Things on offer as part of GCSE PE include climbing, archery, boxing, weights, as well as the expected rugby, football, hockey, netball and cross country running. Lots of chances to try a range of sports to find one they like.
Also, whole school initiatives can include everyone completing a fitness test at the beginning of the year, identification of those with low fitness levels and supporting them with a lunchtime club to improve their general fitness - that's part of Healthy Schools
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Polly Plummer
Shipmate
# 13354
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Posted
I was useless at games (no hand-eye coordination) but liked them, liked dancing, but absolutely terrified of gym: I hate not having my feet firmly on the ground.
We had at one time a particularly sadistic teacher (we always thought the school appointed her because she played hockey for England, not for teaching ability) who declared that anybody could do a handstand and didn't believe me when I said I couldn't: it ended up with me with my hands on the floor, with everyone watching, while she got two of the biggest girls to lift my legs up and over, and she said that was a handstand. My friends and I all knew it wasn't, so there was a certain moral satisfaction, but it was one of my most embarrassing and least pleasant moments at school.
Posts: 577 | Registered: Jan 2008
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Schools these days give young people 6 week blocks of a range of different sports. I bet none of you over 30s learned table tennis in school, or Zumba, which one of my Guides is currently doing. Things on offer as part of GCSE PE include climbing, archery, boxing, weights, as well as the expected rugby, football, hockey, netball and cross country running. Lots of chances to try a range of sports to find one they like.
Also, whole school initiatives can include everyone completing a fitness test at the beginning of the year, identification of those with low fitness levels and supporting them with a lunchtime club to improve their general fitness - that's part of Healthy Schools
He has few enough GCSE slots for important subject without wasting one on PE; I doubt they'd let him anyway. Schools vary; his (nearing retirement) previous PE teacher tended to abandon whatever he was meant to be doing in favour of More Bloody F**tb*ll. The current one's a bit better but the menu is still repetitive.
[ 04. February 2018, 22:04: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Another who hated hated HATED PE, and got bullied. etc. I have hypermobile joints and asthma to boot, so was never able to do freaking ANYTHING without mucking it up. And of course PE was every freaking day...
They actually put me in remedial PE for a while, which meant taking me out of archery (the one thing on the curriculum I might have had a fighting chance to do) and making me run laps on asphalt instead. Did I mention one of my legs is not straight?
Feh.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Japes
Shipmate
# 5358
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Posted
You lose your bet, CK.
I'm well over 30, and definitely learned table tennis at school. In fact, occasionally, I was very good at it, just not consistently so and it stood me in very good stead in later years in residential schools work.
We did the rotate round several indoor activities in the winter (think we did four weeks) in the late 70s and could choose which one we'd prefer once we'd had a go at the lot. From memory, badminton, volleyball, trampolining, table tennis and fencing. Also traditional gym stuff, which again, we had to have a go at, but could get out of fast!!
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Blog may or may not be of any interest.
Posts: 2013 | From: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: Dec 2003
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
To be honest, I suspect that table tennis was an option when I took canoeing on Wednesday afternoons in the fifth form, but it would have been the choice of the popular kids, whereas I actually wanted to learn canoeing, which had nothing to do with not wanting to humiliate myself by missing a small moving ball - another one wearing hefty glasses from primary school.
The school I attended for sixth form (in a different part of the country) let us pretty much choose what we wanted to do in PE sessions. It had a swimming pool and let us set up gym equipment between us, so I wouldn't have looked for a ball game to lose. There were canoes, but no-one to canoe with, so that wasn't possible. Someone used his PE sessions to practise his golf swing.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Another PE hater here. My low point was rounders, one of the few things I was actually good at because I bat left-handed and tended to take the fielders by surprise. My PE teacher told me that I had to bat right-handed (left-handed was "cheating" apparently) and that was that. I still enjoyed playing rounders at Guides, where there was no right-handed rule, but school rounders was miserable.
Originally posted by Curiosity killed:
quote:
Also, whole school initiatives can include everyone completing a fitness test at the beginning of the year, identification of those with low fitness levels and supporting them with a lunchtime club to improve their general fitness - that's part of Healthy Schools
This happened at my kids' school. Both my kids have a minor issue with their hips. Fortunately it was picked up when they were little, they both had physio exercises and good advice from the NHS which we followed, and the impact on them has been minimal. The school knew their issues and were open to adapting. The exception was the bloody fitness bleep tests which fell under a different heading than "P.E." Both my kids wobble when doing a 180 degree turn, they will always do badly on bleep tests. They were always identified as having a low fitness level, though fortunately their PE teachers knew that neither of them was unfit, so didn't make an issue of it. It really annoyed me if my kids came limping home because of the fitness bleep tests. I wonder if it was some Scottish equivalent of Healthy Schools?
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I am tempted to go back to my point that we all have bodies and we all have to relate to the physical world, preferably pleasurably, and at least in a way that doesn't cause anyone pain. Thus, the ability to deal predictably and confidently with balls (at least of a sporting nature) seems to me a lifeskill, because other things can come flying towards one, and the ability to manage them would be very advantageous.
This is where I’m not convinced. My brain is just completely and utterly lacking the circuit that calculates the trajectory of missiles. I suck at throwing and catching. This has next to no impact on my daily life as an adult. It is a highly overrated skill.
I really don’t think the point of PE is to get fit, or if it is, in my case it was spectacularly counterproductive. Pretty much all the activities that I was forced to do at school involved throwing and catching, and I sucked at all of them. I left school convinced that exercise was nothing but misery and was determined never to do it again. It was only in my late twenties that I discovered types of exercise that I was actually ok at and enjoyed (running and hiking) and got fit for the first time in my life. Neither of the above was ever offered to me at school. I was never more pleased with myself than when I managed to game the timetable in the sixth form so that I had only one period of PE per week, by which time all the equipment was already taken and I could sit around on the floor in the gym doing the odd sit-up and nothing else.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
Thus, the ability to deal predictably and confidently with balls (at least of a sporting nature) seems to me a lifeskill, because other things can come flying towards one, and the ability to manage them would be very advantageous.
I don't buy this in the slightest. When on earth in your normal life do you encounter objects flying at you where the proper response is to trap in on your chest and volley it into the corner of the net, or to hit it over the roof of a nearby building with the stick you happen to be carrying, or anything like that?
When, in fact, in your normal life, do things come flying at you at all?
If I could go back to my mathematical analogy for a moment, I think we'd all agree that there are a set of things (budgeting, being able to write a check, read a credit card statement, understand a payslip, file a tax return) that are life skills that everyone should have. I think we'd all also agree that solving differential equations is a useful skill for some people, and will always remain beyond the ken of some other people.
I think it's also obviously true that to best serve both the people who solve differential equations and the people who can't add fractions, you need to teach them budgeting and financial life skills in different ways.
Isn't there a PE parallel? Being sufficiently fit and active to support ones health is the universal desirable goal; this looks different for sporty kids and ball-avoiders.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
When I started college we were still required to take PE (I think it was for our first two years). At the end of my first year -- field hockey mostly -- they did away with the requirement. I'm glad they got rid of it, but couldn't they have done it a year or so earlier?
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
PE was one of the banes of my young existence. I was bullied mercilessly in general, and in gym it was worse. I remember with particular horror trying to make a basket in basketball, and trying to learn how to climb a rope. In retrospect, I don't remember anyone trying to actively teach me these things, just being expected to know how, and failing.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
If we're reminiscing about our childhood experiences, I suspect my Anglican boarding school wins for the most extreme. There's a film about it from 1974. Watchable online: The New Boys by the National Film Board of Canada. Basics: canoe trips in June and in the fall, of somewhere in the vicinity of 1000 miles, snowshoe training and racing for a 50 mile race. (They did not make a man of me) Anglicans were right crazy for a spell in Canada.
[ 06. February 2018, 21:01: Message edited by: no prophet's flag is set so... ]
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Any time as an adult when missiles of any kind have come flying at me, being able to hit them with any kind of wooden stick would not have been a useful skill, and I never had such a stick on me at the time anyway. Usually it's moths. ThunderBunk, I don't now what you think you were saying, but what you said is inane.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
When I started college we were still required to take PE (I think it was for our first two years). At the end of my first year -- field hockey mostly -- they did away with the requirement. I'm glad they got rid of it, but couldn't they have done it a year or so earlier?
That's pretty much the attitude I have to being forced to take GCSE French, a requirement that disappeared 2 years later.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
When I started college we were still required to take PE (I think it was for our first two years). At the end of my first year -- field hockey mostly -- they did away with the requirement. I'm glad they got rid of it, but couldn't they have done it a year or so earlier?
That's pretty much the attitude I have to being forced to take GCSE French, a requirement that disappeared 2 years later.
They dumped a lot of general requirements that year. I suffered through many courses (Western Civilization ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif) ) just to get my requirements out of the way, all for nothing.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Spike
Mostly Harmless
# 36
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
A GCSE language is a requirement of the EBacc.
OK, so imagine a child has genuine problems getting to grips with a language. What does the teacher do to address that? Then think about how the Slideret's teacher addresses his problem with hitting a ball. Notice a difference?
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"May you get to heaven before the devil knows you're dead" - Irish blessing
Posts: 12860 | From: The Valley of Crocuses | Registered: May 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
The kids that are not going to achieve an EBacc are being excluded into alternative provision across the country. Alternative provision placements are being judged on the same OFSTED criteria as main stream schools and being labelled as failing as a result.
This situation was entirely predictable and why the Head Teachers' Round Table suggested a tiered qualifications framework that allowed students who were not coping with foreign languages and other esoteric subjects to follow a different curriculum. Gove did not agree so we've got the current delight of his National Curriculum which is "more academically rigorous" (ie impossible for a significant number of students), harder subject levels for all, Progress 8 and the EBacc.
Fortunately for the Backslideret, PE is not an EBacc required subject, but an optional extra.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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luvanddaisies
the'fun'in'fundie'™
# 5761
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Posted
In my primary school PE was taught to us on the understanding that the point was to WIN! Coming second was just the loser who came closest.
This approach pervaded everything from hockey to athletics. At 7 we were being taught techniques for getting off starting blocks, and in swimming classes even the non-swimmers and poor swimmers group (these are my people!) had lessons on efficient technique, streamlined body shape, optimal hand shaping and so on - stuff more appropriate to the top group who had a chance of making school teams some day.
I hated PE, which is a pity because I was actually really quite good at netball, but unfortunately wasalso a popular target for bullying, so if I did happen to miss a goal during a game I knew I’d be getting some level of punishment in the changing rooms after (our PE teachers would turn a blind eye to ‘deserved’ retribution such as that for missing a shot). This was exacerbated by us having fixed teams. In hockey, for example, after the first week’s lessons where we went through drills, testing and so on we were given positions and put into teams. These positions would be the ones we would play and train in from when we were 8 throughout school (I left before the secondary school part of that school, so have no idea if it continued into secondary school. It’s likely). Defenders did some different drills from attackers, and we never practised with goalkeepers as it supposedly made the defence lazy.
In my secondary school I didn’t mind PE. We had to do it every day after academic lessons were done, sometimes just a walk, sometimes team games or whatever activity they came up with, but it wasn’t a thing that was a big deal to be good at, being academic and a bit odd was more highly valued generally (it was an unusual school!). I enjoyed it more then.
It’s not everybody’s thing, and not everybody should be forced into sports, but at the same time exercise is a necessary thing, and finding ways to keep one’s body healthy and ticking over should be the aim. Sadly though PE teachers seem to buy into the societal idea that sport is a thing that everybody should enjoy - there’s never a special daily music section at the end of every single paper, the achievements of scientists aren’t a fixture in a special dedicated section at the end of every news broadcast, and international chess tournaments don’t take up millions of column centimetres for weeks beforehand and after.
If the focus wasn’t on being good at it, but just at finding a way to move about a bit, maybe have some sort of fun, but at least not being miserable, then people like most of us on this thread wouldn’t have spent those years so pissed off about the whole thing. If people want to play team games they should have to fit it into their lunchtimes and after schools, like the chess club or the orchestra or the warhammer society. It might also mean people realise that hobbies shouldn’t have a hierarchy. People mock Cosplayers going to cons and memorising the minutiae of their favourite things, but people yelling at a football match and knowing players and stats going back decades are admired. Fuck That.
TLDR - society is rotten in how it views sport and exercise and I’m overtired and rambling.
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"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." (Mark Twain)
Posts: 3711 | From: all at sea. | Registered: Apr 2004
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
The kids that are not going to achieve an EBacc are being excluded into alternative provision across the country. Alternative provision placements are being judged on the same OFSTED criteria as main stream schools and being labelled as failing as a result.
This situation was entirely predictable and why the Head Teachers' Round Table suggested a tiered qualifications framework that allowed students who were not coping with foreign languages and other esoteric subjects to follow a different curriculum. Gove did not agree so we've got the current delight of his National Curriculum which is "more academically rigorous" (ie impossible for a significant number of students), harder subject levels for all, Progress 8 and the EBacc.
Fortunately for the Backslideret, PE is not an EBacc required subject, but an optional extra.
Interestingly a foreign language isn't compulsory at Boy #1's school. He eagerly awaits giving up Spanish at the end of the year. I love languages but like him am bloody useless at learning them so I can't really blame him.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by luvanddaisies:
In my primary school PE was taught to us on the understanding that the point was to WIN! Coming second was just the loser who came closest.
This approach pervaded everything from hockey to athletics. At 7 we were being taught techniques for getting off starting blocks, and in swimming classes even the non-swimmers and poor swimmers group (these are my people!) had lessons on efficient technique, streamlined body shape, optimal hand shaping and so on - stuff more appropriate to the top group who had a chance of making school teams some day.
I hated PE, which is a pity because I was actually really quite good at netball, but unfortunately wasalso a popular target for bullying, so if I did happen to miss a goal during a game I knew I’d be getting some level of punishment in the changing rooms after (our PE teachers would turn a blind eye to ‘deserved’ retribution such as that for missing a shot). This was exacerbated by us having fixed teams. In hockey, for example, after the first week’s lessons where we went through drills, testing and so on we were given positions and put into teams. These positions would be the ones we would play and train in from when we were 8 throughout school (I left before the secondary school part of that school, so have no idea if it continued into secondary school. It’s likely). Defenders did some different drills from attackers, and we never practised with goalkeepers as it supposedly made the defence lazy.
In my secondary school I didn’t mind PE. We had to do it every day after academic lessons were done, sometimes just a walk, sometimes team games or whatever activity they came up with, but it wasn’t a thing that was a big deal to be good at, being academic and a bit odd was more highly valued generally (it was an unusual school!). I enjoyed it more then.
It’s not everybody’s thing, and not everybody should be forced into sports, but at the same time exercise is a necessary thing, and finding ways to keep one’s body healthy and ticking over should be the aim. Sadly though PE teachers seem to buy into the societal idea that sport is a thing that everybody should enjoy - there’s never a special daily music section at the end of every single paper, the achievements of scientists aren’t a fixture in a special dedicated section at the end of every news broadcast, and international chess tournaments don’t take up millions of column centimetres for weeks beforehand and after.
If the focus wasn’t on being good at it, but just at finding a way to move about a bit, maybe have some sort of fun, but at least not being miserable, then people like most of us on this thread wouldn’t have spent those years so pissed off about the whole thing. If people want to play team games they should have to fit it into their lunchtimes and after schools, like the chess club or the orchestra or the warhammer society. It might also mean people realise that hobbies shouldn’t have a hierarchy. People mock Cosplayers going to cons and memorising the minutiae of their favourite things, but people yelling at a football match and knowing players and stats going back decades are admired. Fuck That.
TLDR - society is rotten in how it views sport and exercise and I’m overtired and rambling.
All this. Why are sports so privileged over other hobbies and pastimes? Spend eight hours a week playing D&D and you're a nerd; spend it in the swimming pool and you're a dedicated inspiring young athlete.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
Yea and amen to what Luv and Daisies said - what excellent sense!
PE was compulsory twice a week the whole way through my secondary schooling, and even when I did my secretarial certificate, we had at least an hour of it a week - although at least at that stage we got rather more fun things to do like archery, trampolining and volleyball.
I can see the point of physical activity being good for you, but honestly, if they wanted to encourage me to carry on with it into adulthood, they could have made it a lot more enjoyable than it was.
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Gill H
Shipmate
# 68
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Posted
I’ve been listening to ‘Brave New World’ on Radio 4 lately (a book I first read aged 11, along with 1984 - now that was a depressing summer...)
The mention of ‘heretical views on sport’ reminded me of this thread. Evidently there are plenty of us heretics.
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*sigh* We can’t all be Alan Cresswell.
- Lyda Rose
Posts: 9313 | From: London | Registered: May 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Why are sports so privileged over other hobbies and pastimes? Spend eight hours a week playing D&D and you're a nerd; spend it in the swimming pool and you're a dedicated inspiring young athlete.
Not all sports ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Spend eight hours a week fencing, and you're still a nerd.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
I didn't realise it when I was younger, but what I actually couldn't do was team sports. Any sort of activity that I could do on my own to try to improve my technique, particularly timing myself against the clock and comparing my previous score, well that was very motivating and just perfect.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Being the last one picked. Whoever thought that was a good idea?
There are other ways of getting children into teams.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
Names out of a hat.
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
What I did was to use the warm up runaround, with whistle stops and a variety of numbers called out, and they had to organise themselves into groups of that number. Then, when I had worked out that I could do x teams of y members, I would call out x, and then line up each self selected group so that each member was in a different line. Sneaky. I didn't have all the best ones in one group, that way, but spread about. (Every now and then there would be a team which won everything, but I would then swap them about. They didn't seem to mind.)
Nobody got to be last picked.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
I didn't need to be picked last to know I was irredeemably shite. Not to mention therefore and therefrom a complete spanner.
[ 11. February 2018, 13:19: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Leorning Cniht
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# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I didn't need to be picked last to know I was irredeemably shite. Not to mention therefore and therefrom a complete spanner.
This. Kids aren't stupid. They all know that if you give the ball to speccy four-eyes, you may as well just give it to the other team. The fact that speccy four-eyes is one of this week's team captains doesn't make the slightest bit of difference.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
It depends on how PE is timetabled. In many secondary schools half the year is timetabled for PE at the same time, so 90-100 students. This can allow some schools to split that cohort into ability groups so that, for example, all the groups are playing in teams, more able students together with specific instruction in rules and higher level skills, the less able group(s) is (are) also playing the same game, but with more concentration on practising basic skills.
It takes the PE department to be organising students based on abilities in PE, which may not match academic abilities or be the same across all sports.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Aravis
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# 13824
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Posted
Our games lessons were divided by sporting ability. As I had undiagnosed hyper mobility and was generally dyspraxic, this policy put me in the games group with a lot of girls from the D and E academic streams who basically refused to try at anything. The games teacher usually did exercise with us for a short while, then disappeared to the staff room for a coffee and told us to jog round the block (this was about a mile or two I think). Most of the others started running up the road then crept back the other way and went to the shop for sweets.
Posts: 689 | From: S Wales | Registered: Jun 2008
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jacobsen
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# 14998
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Posted
Bunking off games was a favourite ploy for us in 5th and 6th form. Plus, our games field on the edge of town seemed to get the Siberian blasts unmodulated by anything in the way.
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
My younger daughter had serious vision problems, and had to start wearing contact lenses when she was nine. They hurt, but she was so glad she could see clearly that she put up with the pain.
When she started junior high school (age 12) the school sent a form to the parents at the beginning of the year asking if the child had any special problems. I wrote a detailed explanation, saying that it was especially painful for her to look up or look at bright lights. After some months, I learned from someone else that when they played volley ball, she made no effort to hit the ball, and at least once it bounced off her head. The lights in the ceiling were very bright, and looking up caused pain anyway. I went to the school and talked to the teacher; she said that the girl should have been mature enough to explain this. Very few twelve-year-olds are willing to volunteer the information that there is something wrong with their bodies. Since this was the age-group that this woman worked with, she should have known that.
My daughter's eye problems were enough to put up with; she didn't need the extra problems caused by the gym teacher.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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geroff
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# 3882
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Posted
Is it true that one of the marks of a Christian is to be the one who was always picked last, or not picked at all?
I hated PE as it was just an extension of general and specific bullying.
What didn't help was the time I was so far at the back of the cross country that I got lost (having only moved to the area a week before). I also had hayfever and undiagnosed asthma so I was generally rubbish.
I like Karl have never found a sport. When we joined a gym (aged 42, the shared changing rooms reminded so much of school I couldn't go). I have an idea that I want to take up cycling but I have problems with having to wear the cyclists' uniform and be good at it.
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"The first principle in science is to invent something nice to look at and then decide what it can do." Rowland Emett 1906-1990
Posts: 1172 | From: Montgomeryshire, Wales | Registered: Jan 2003
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by geroff:
I hated PE as it was just an extension of general and specific bullying.
Absolutely. And in addition to the bullying of my classmates (this was ages 9-11), the teacher was a bully as well. If you couldn't run/throw/catch/bat you were treated like garbage. (He did nothing to help one's running/throwing/catching/batting skills, which was supposed to be his job.)
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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geroff
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# 3882
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Posted
Quite appropriately one of my 'teachers' was one Mr Batterham.
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"The first principle in science is to invent something nice to look at and then decide what it can do." Rowland Emett 1906-1990
Posts: 1172 | From: Montgomeryshire, Wales | Registered: Jan 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by geroff:
I have an idea that I want to take up cycling but I have problems with having to wear the cyclists' uniform and be good at it.
Fortunately neither of these are compulsory, although I can recommend the padded trousers/shorts/tights as they do avoid arse-pain.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
quote:
Originally posted by geroff:
I hated PE as it was just an extension of general and specific bullying.
Absolutely. And in addition to the bullying of my classmates (this was ages 9-11), the teacher was a bully as well. If you couldn't run/throw/catch/bat you were treated like garbage. (He did nothing to help one's running/throwing/catching/batting skills, which was supposed to be his job.)
Of course not. If you can't do them naturally you'll never put any silverware in their trophy cabinet, so they've no motivation. Besides, they and their favourites (for all the talk of sports being character building there was a positive correlation between the sportsmen and the people who made my school life unpleasant) need someone to despise.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by geroff:
I have an idea that I want to take up cycling but I have problems with having to wear the cyclists' uniform and be good at it.
Fortunately neither of these are compulsory, although I can recommend the padded trousers/shorts/tights as they do avoid arse-pain.
I prefer just to have a padded saddle, myself. Admittedly, my riding a 100lb cargo trike is a little different from the MAMILs on their carbon fibre speed machines.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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wild haggis
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# 15555
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Posted
PE has changed in many schools today. Unfortunately it is not helped by PE syllabi being influenced by the latest half baked ideas from politicians and the media, instead of listening to teachers and pupils.
I get sick and tired of hearing people who never go into schools critisising education. The people who dis modern PE multidisciplinary/non-competitive methods and force their outdated ideas on schools are often hardly peons of fitness themselves; they are usually male, often having a tendency to bully and are out of touch with young people today; they have memories of a sporting golden past that never really existed.
Sorry but it does get me very cross.
Kids have been put off exercise when it has been badly taught by people who don't understand that exercise can be obtained by other fun methods that may actually burn off more calories and be more engaging for all abilities and disabilities, than team games.
A good teacher will match lessons to his/her kids. The idea that sport/PE needs to be "traditional" and competitive, is wrong and discriminatory - and usually male.
Things such as disco dance, street dance, hip hop (many boys love these forms of dance/exercise, if properly taught) and zumba can be used instead of the usual apparatus and trad. team games. Dance can be used very effectively in building co-operation and physical fitness. It can burn off many more calories than hanging around a games pitch waiting for someone to pass you a ball or waiting for your turn to go on the pitch (and probably sitting around bored and freezing).
I'll never forget the boys from the school football team that I did a Scottish Country Dancing lesson with. They poo pooed the idea but were all out of breathe after a basic warm up, before I had even started to teach them the dance set. My group of dancers thought it very funny that they were so unfit!!
If children are into competitive sport that's fine and they can join classes or clubs that will encourage and develop that talent. But for the majority.............let's give them exercise that is fun and enjoyable.
We have put kids off exercise and turned them into couch potatoes by insisting exercise is only done by one or two methods, for too long now.
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wild haggis
Posts: 166 | From: Cardiff | Registered: Mar 2010
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Though to be fair the alternative of dance would have had me on the football pitch pretty quickly
If I've led a wicked life my personal Hell will be an eternal dance session to loud upbeat dance music.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
quote:
Originally posted by geroff:
I hated PE as it was just an extension of general and specific bullying.
Absolutely. And in addition to the bullying of my classmates (this was ages 9-11), the teacher was a bully as well. If you couldn't run/throw/catch/bat you were treated like garbage. (He did nothing to help one's running/throwing/catching/batting skills, which was supposed to be his job.)
I know what you mean. South Wales has produced tens of thousands of teachers and thousands of PE/Gym teachers. Down here the saying is that:
- Those who can, do
- Those who can't, teach
- Those who can't teach, teach gym.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826
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Posted
I also loathed PE.
One memorable day in junior high, we had to jump on the trampoline. One of my classmates was morbidly obese — I would say close to 300 pounds — and was terrified of getting on the trampoline, but our unsympathetic teacher insisted. First she almost upended the thing; then she stood trembling on it while the teacher screamed at her, “ JUMP! JUMP! HIGHER!” The rest of the class, acting as spotters, were also terrified, andcwhenever the girl listed to one side or another, the girls at that edge jumped back, eliciting more screaming from the teacher: “ SPOT HER! SPOT HER!” Back to her victim: “HiGHER! JUMP HIGHER!” And she finally did...and fell off the trampoline, as other girls ran for cover, and broke her leg.
Please tell me that PE is better now.
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Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com
Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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