MP calls for sense on school PE lessons

Now here's a story I can relate to. LibDem MP Sandra Gidley calls for a change to the mandatory practice of competitive team-based PE lessons in schools which so often leaves the less able with a lifelong disdain for sport and instead offer a wider variety of options for keeping pupils fit.

Being dyspraxic, although unaware of it during secondary school, I was forever picked last for teams and had no athletic ability to speak of. This led to derision by peers and being ignored by teaching staff who seemed only interested in those with sporting ability. In my experience those who are particularly sporting tend to be ultra-competitive are unable to grasp the concept of or make allowances for anyone who isn't. PE teachers being generally hewn from this mould often suffer from this same flaw. As the MP rightly states, putting children through a schooling of competitive team sports when they've little ability to offer in that area is not going to make for a wholesome, positive experience to take with them into later life. That's certainly what I've found. As is so often the case the system is at fault in being too narrow in its aims and modus operandi.

In business it can make good sense to target a central majority and ignore those on the periphery who don't fit so conveniently into the business model you're using. Schools however must never adhere to such a system. Every effort must be made for full inclusivity down to the last pupil. Anything less has to be regarded as a failure. Perhaps schools should look to hiring PE teachers with more varied personality types to better suit the range of pupils, implement tiered groups within PE as is used in other faculties or even shift PE training of those with difficulties into the remit of special needs.

I do certainly hope that PE lessons are better suited to those with difficulties than when I was as school some ten years ago, however I suspect that the national panic and clamour over an obesity epidemic will lead to all pupils being pushed outside into the same sort of lessons that will continue to fail a struggling minority.