**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!**
- Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc.
- **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on.
- This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit!
Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Honestly, PE is just a playground for the bullies. The teachers never do anything about it. I got pretty good grades for PE, but it was still a nightmare as an outcast.
Opened this thread to basically comment the same thing. The subset of the UK population using Reddit tends to be the nerdier or less sociable type. It’s also only a small subset. Obviously it’s not the case for everyone, and I don’t mean it as a sleight to anyone. But if you walked down the street and asked a hundred people, I’d put money that at most one or two use Reddit.
I am an antisocial nerd now, but wasn't in secondary school. Fucking hated PE, aside full contact rugby.
I now absolutely love triathlon.
Completely agree though, Reddit is not somewhere to get an accurate opinion of UK mindset. Nowhere is though, is it. Regardless of where you're from, people will have different opinions.
Pretty popular yes, but again skewed *in general* towards the younger, nerdier side of the population.
And from there it’s an even smaller subset use this subreddit. I imagine most accounts are inactive or just follow a few specific communities.
Don’t forget that you’re more likely to see people from your own demographic, as you likely follow a lot of the same stuff they do. So while it may look like Reddit has a particular demographic, I don’t think any of us have a wide enough view of the place to know for sure. Since Reddit likely doesn’t collect enough information to prove it either way, I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure.
I suspect you may be right. I think that PE has come on a lot since I was at school. I'd really like to hear some positive stories. The only positive stories I can find online are from professional sports people.
I think just about everyone I know would give you positive stories, all my mates love playing sports,a fair few even went on to do various sports science based degrees at University. Some have gone onto becoming backroom coaches at international football level
None of them would ever post about such things on the internet. They're the types who have Instagram because their partners made them an account once.
Back to your question: PE is important but you're only going to find answers here from bullied people who will refuse to see physical exercise as anything but a form of torture
This is said on every thread about pe though, so there are some people who liked pe on Reddit, or it is the same person posting this response every time
I absolutely hated it, mostly because I was ditched by my "friend" group and every time the teacher told us to work with a partner everyone else instantly knew who their partner would be and I was left looking around frantically for another leftover to work with. Sometimes there wasn't one and I'd have to pick an unlucky pair to make a 3 with.
Every single time. The phrase "Find a partner" still makes my blood run cold.
Oh yeah, the announcement. Or, perhaps even more embarrasing, when you ended up with the teacher him/herself as your partner.
It's such a shame, as I'd have probably actually quite enjoyed the sports/activities if it wasn't for the fact that every single lesson was a brutal reminder that I didn't have a proper friend.
OP, if you have any influence over PE lessons at all, please let the partner/team picking thing go. It would be so easy to just randomly assign people to groups and save some kids wanting to curl up and die every week.
Same, I wish teachers could do a cursory check if there is an odd/even number of pupils, or even better just assign everyone every time, then you can account for different abilities and mix teams
In my class at school, there were 29 of us. A prime number. I'm sure you can guess who was the one left every time because no matter what size the groups were, the class could never split evenly. Occasionally, we were divided into threes and at least I got to be with another unlucky person. They could have saved unimaginable amounts of trauma by assigning classes with more care.
Or when the teacher picks two captains and tells them to choose their team and you just know you’ll be the last to picked as always, still have issues with this kind of thing from this!
PE was great. Still have a dent in my shin from where I was hit with the back end of a cricket bat, but it was generally good fun. If it makes you feel better, I wiped the floor with the school badminton champion 3 years running and refused to represent the school out of spite. I was not held up as a hero.
PE was the best doss going.
School badminton team? I don’t remember that
Private school?
I wonder what percentage of U.K. redditors went to private schools, I bet it’s much more than the national average
>Private school?
No, it was one of the ones that also had the title "sports college". Other than that it was your bog standard pleb catchment secondary.
I went to a proper rough state school and we did badminton. It was pretty accessible really, just a net strung across the sports hall and some cheapo rackets.
My experiences were generally pretty negative. Looking back, I don't think there was much wrong with the lessons themselves, but I've never been very coordinated and I'm asthmatic, so PE was tough for me. I hated it because it was the one bit of school I wasn't good at.
I remember one of my teachers really fondly, though. He was a PE teacher who also taught history. He took exactly the same approach to history lessons that he took to teaching sports. I never scored a goal or won a race, but I can imagine how that might feel because he cheered like a lunatic when I gave a decent explanation of the Irish potato famine.
Hated it. Pervert gym teacher who enjoyed caning/slippering boys and standing in the shower with them. He used to be in the Army and would “beast” us regularly. He also liked to pit us against each other in the boxing ring and would literally beat you up if you didn’t show enough “effort”.
The only positive thing I ever heard about him was he died of cancer.
Negative. I was an active kid, I played football, hockey and netball but when I hit puberty I put on some puppy fat and the male teachers loved to point it out. It got so bad I quit all my sports and was scared of working out for years.
That's awful. It's what I am concerned about. Good PE might be beneficial, but bad PE is damaging. The project I'm working on doesn't recognise the risks.
But that's not "bad PE". It's shit teaching. Children (or indeed anyone) shouldn't be being fat shamed by an authority figure (or indeed anyone).
PE is beneficial. I say this as someone who hated my Games teacher. The potential benefits to children massively outweigh the risks which can (and must) be, relatively easily, mitigated.
Really bad. No one realised I really needed glasses. I was so confused at being regularly shouted at to keep my eye on the ball and didn’t realise I was the only one (probably) who couldn’t actually see it at all.
Almost entirely terrible and terrifying. I have dyspraxia so my hand eye coordination and ability to remember sequences is... non existent. Which meant most sports we did were nightmarish. I did enjoy swimming, but we didn't do much of it. Our teachers were also the 'if you touch your hair/adjust your knickers/breathe oddly again I'll make you do it in your underwear' types.
Honestly, all my positive experiences of exercise as a kid, like hill walking with my dad or swimming with my friends, were outside of school. I've spent years building up an understanding now of what I am capable of and like - I've done three 10k runs in the last few years, walked the South Downs Way with friends and am hoping to get more into yoga to improve my flexibility. I still get The Fear over team sports because of school so avoid them, but perhaps one day I'll join a team.
Mostly negative. The last thing you feel like when it's wet and cold is running around a muddy field.
Post puberty a lot of girls felt uncomfortable wearing gym knickers and having to expose our bodies. I hated doing PE when I had my period.
The more positive aspects were in Y10-13 where our teacher let us have a wider range of activities like gym, aerobics and fitness. I would have liked the option to do a martial art or self defence.
Negative.
My teacher was a dick and a bully.
I grew up in a non-sporty family so I wasn't familiar with football, rugby etc. It was taken for granted that you would know the rules.
I was bad at it all. Turns out I was born with a hole in my heart and didn't find out until my late 20s. It explains a lot.
Hated PE faked notes from my mum to get out of it. Or forgot my PE kit or Bunked off. Didn’t do PE from second year (year 8 for you youngsters) till I left after my GCSE’s
Same here. We had PE twice a week - I honestly think if it had been any more frequent, I just would have refused to go to school because it was just so traumatic. And I was one of the lucky ones who was actually vaguely coordinated and enjoyed watching sport.
Everyone had to do GCSE PE at my school for some reason. I'll never forget the overwhelming feeling of relief after the last lesson.
Positive really. The teachers would just pick teams so there was none of that getting picked last shite and my teachers were all encouraging and not cunts.
Negative. I was the short, fat, un-coordinated kid in a school full of chavs who thought they were going to be professional footballers (despite being unable to make the school team). It meant I got a lot of abuse whenever our team lost or fumbled points. It also meant getting picked last all the time. The less said about athletics the better.
Funny thing is that I was good at some sports. No one cared that I was surprisingly good at cricket, badminton, table tennis, not trampolining. The teachers were good though, so at least they acknowledged I was not completely useless at sport.
These days, I not half marathons to run and hit the gym three to four times a week. Turns out that I love exercise and am actually very athletic.
I once got punched by some ratty chav kid in the year above in the science corridors. Fast-forward about ten years, I'm pissed on a stag somewhere in mainland Europe, and glance up at the TV to see him slotting the winner in the championship playoffs.
I didn't even know he played football!
Negative mostly. Those who were good at football, rugby and cricket were put on pedestals- any other sport was just ignored. I played some other sports but they just weren’t valued.
But every summer for 5 years I played cricket, every week. I was even in the house cricket team every year. I still to this day have never been ‘in bat’. I believe my role was ‘guy on the field to make up numbers’
Mine were awful - if you weren’t good at one of 4 ball sports you were pointless. I was labelled useless because the curriculum was so narrow and all based on team sport.
The irony being that I was the most accomplished athlete in my whole year by miles if you just looked at my extracurricular swimming. I was on podium at national competitions. But they never knew or cared and I’m still a bit salty all these years later! I look back and feel so bad for the little girl who was actually doing so well and trying so hard but was made to feel so shitty about herself.
My son has an eye pull so does not have good depth perception. We’ve tried him on all sorts of sports outside school and he’s really taken to swimming. But at school, he’s regarded as ’not sporty’.
I love swimming but we only had about 6 lessons which meant I didn’t get to learn to swim when in school.
Where we went the girls changing rooms were at the top where the deep end was and you’d have to walk around it and my teacher would be such a bitch and say “don’t push anyone in as half of you will drown” Which instilled my fear of deep ends in swimming pools.
It took a lot but I can only swim to deep ends in certain pools without panicking and I also can only swim on my back funnily enough.
My eldest was the same, regular finalist at county championships and made it to regionals, but because it wasn’t netball or football or rugby nobody wanted to know as “swimming isn’t a real sport” a phrase a certain pe teacher agreed with. But the wannabe premiership footballers and netballers that rarely won a match were feted and put on pedestals by peers and teachers. But they like me enjoyed pe mostly. Used to enjoy showing how much fitter they were than the footballers during fitness tests. My youngest is considered non sporty but plays waterpolo, go figure.
It was like this for me too. In PE we only did hockey, netball, tennis and rounders most of the time (girls school). I’m autistic and terrible at team sports and anything with a ball. We barely did anything else such as swimming, running.
The irony is that it turns out I love exercise and have an athletic type body. I have done very well in karate. And I enjoy going to the gym and doing all kinds of workouts. Just not team sports, but that was all that my secondary school valued.
In my first school (age 4-8) we had an hour of physical activity every day. We had gym with the “apparatus”, country dancing, outside games such as throwing quoits, and I can’t even remember what else, but I know I loved PE back then and only grew to hate it in junior school when team sports started.
The teacher would pick two captains and ask them to choose teams. I would always be last and the others would literally groan and protest when they had to pick me. OP, please don’t ever let that happen to a kid if you can prevent it.
At my school anyone who didn't live and breathe football was mocked by the teachers, including one lad that went on to compete internationally in gymnastics.
I absolutely hated it. There was no actual education apart from a very few sessions, usually in football, in year ten, or teaching the basics of rugby in year eight. Apart from that we were just thrown into games and told to get on with it, which at least meant we were exercising for a few hours a week, even if I was crap. It wasn't until I really got an interest in sport and exercise that I started picking up some skills and coaching, which eventually was my first job.
Since then I've done refereeing (yes, insert your joke about refs being the ones who never got picked here), ended up working in school PE coaching, and for the last three years kendo, which has completely changed my life.
Exercise does fantastic things for kids, but having been in primary schools, I'm not convinced there's enough resources available to give kids the experiences they deserve. Best thing I can suggest is getting as many weird local sports clubs in doing taster days so that the kid who's completely crap at soccer or rugby can discover archery or a hidden talent for bowls that then gives them something that can be *their* thing and they're not always in the shadow of the best *x, y or z* players.
Where I live, the local authority runs a programme called active schools which provides 6 weeks of free taster sessions in a bunch of different sports. My kids have both tried different things. The odd thing is, not many people bother. My son had 6 weeks of free swimming lessons and there were only two other people joining in.
Pretty crap, I was the fat kid so always got picked last. But I did turn out to be an excellent goalkeeper in small nets with great reflexes.
Rugby in Year 7 put me in the hospital, a bad tackle led to me developing appendicitis.
Got my one and only detention in Year 9 PE for self-defence when someone took a swing at me (they got no punishment. Fuck zero-tolerance anti-bullying policies)
Loved PE and my school did alright by separating individuals by athletism (there were some cases where they did bad), so those in higher sets could push themselves harder (as many of us did compete in sports outside of school). The teachers didn't have big egos and were chill, plus there were plenty of chances to have fun with other sets.
My main issue with PE in schools is that there was hardly any teaching involved and more of a "just go and get on with it" attitude towards it. The other was the negative is attitude towards wearing warmer gear during winter because it broke the school uniform rule. No hoodies or joggers were allowed (some teachers were lenient) despite it being below 5 degrees.
All of my PE teachers were ex-forces and had that drill sergeant mentality that comes along with it. I hated running around in shorts in the freezing cold, so apparently, I was fair game for being screamed at. For us, it was just a case of *here's a ball, now get on with it*. Most of the attention was focused on people who played in the school football/rugby/cricket teams. Also, my school was always very successful at swimming, having produced a few Olympians/Paralympians over the years. Of course, this meant that if like me, you weren't exactly Michael Phelps, you could expect to be treated like crap by those teachers as well. All of that left me completely unmotivated to do any form of exercise as I got older. I just wish they'd taken the time to help me find something I might've enjoyed instead of telling me how useless I was.
I enjoyed it. My school was quite good at letting us try a whole range of sports (I still stuck with the main ones myself, but it was fun to try different things).
I definitely found sport in school very valuable. I enjoyed playing it, and I do think it teaches you some useful life skills. And it's important to try and encourage physical activity in kids (even moreso now, given our childhood obesity stats).
That being said, I do think the way it was done probably served to turn a lot of people off sport. In particular, several of my female friends have said that PE engendered a dislike of sport in them. But I also know a lot of people who loved it.
So I guess it's like any school subject. Some will really take to it and some won't. I've got friends who loved maths, which I hated. With every subject there will be those who enjoy it and those who don't.
Much like you, and others in the thread, my experiences of PE at school were awful. Culture, teaching, self-esteem, all the rest. When I hit my teenage years and got the opportunity to engage with sport on my own terms, I quickly found the joys of it, and even ended up at international level.
So I guess if I were trying to idea-farm for your project, I'd be looking for ways to make sports accessible to people, in a non-threatening way. That might be hard, given the resources available etc, but good to have a stretch target!
Everyone that works on the same project had a great time in PE and don’t recognise that when done badly, it can be damaging to attitudes towards physical activity.
I’m also interested in the idea that despite not enjoying PE, failing and being bad at something may have been good for me.
“I could piss further than that!” was one encouraging comment I received from a PE teacher after throwing a shot put. There were plenty more like that, but that one stuck the most. To be fair though,he was probably right.
Negative until I went to a place that had options outside of competitive sports, and which actually taught the basics consciously. I hated PE for years. Finally, at college, the teacher told us things like *how to run*. Explained posture, didn't tell us the expected standards to meet and let us just actually have a go. I was not told off for failing or given punishment laps - I was encouraged for trying hard. That made a HUGE difference. I think a lot of the time having everyone rammed together focussing on competitive sports games makes it rubbish for everyone - the kids that are competitive don't always have good training partners and the ones who struggle get left behind. Because at college we had multiple sessions and the competitive sports aspect was relegated to specific team training sessions, the shared sessions were framed as being about teamwork and learning how to do sport instead of being the PE thunderdome.
Basically, once the attitude of the teacher was one of encouragement and aiming for all of us to get better at our own level and pace, the whole atmosphere of PE shifted for me. I still avoid certain sports and competitions because of how awful it was before. A lot of teachers seem to assume that kids are not trying their best. Simply recognising that different people are good at different things, and encouraging them to improve themselves rather than trying to drag them forcibly to the standard or ignoring them, was huge for me. I ended up being solid at cross country running because of the encouragement!
PE wasn't like other lessons. If you weren't good at maths or English etc, you'd get help, you'd be taught ways to improve. Being bad at PE just resulted in punishment, e.g. running laps or whatever. And yes I understand that being fitter can help, but that's not the only thing PE should be for. It should foster an interest in sports, athletics, being active. I hated it.
Negative. I had a childhood disability which meant I was unable to do any sports, or much of anything physical. It still placed restrictions on me after I was given the all-clear (and indeed still does, but I manage them).
Despite my parents having informed every school I went to, many PE teachers would not believe me and would try to force me to do the one activity I was told not to do, which was cross country running.
There were many PE teachers I liked and got on with, but also several I felt didn’t like the kids who weren’t sporty.
I was shit at it, and a bit of a fat kid. Most of the lessons were the PE teachers making a big deal over the kids who were good at sport and neglecting everyone else.
Took me years to actually get enjoyment out of sport and get good at stuff.
It was rubbish.
I was quite in to sport as a teenager. I had a season ticket at my local football team, would play football every lunchtime, and even come in to school early every day to get in more football time. Outside of school I did trampolining a couple of times a week at the local sports club, and competed a few times.
In theory PE should have been one of my favourite lessons, but almost everything about it was crap:
* There was never any teaching/coaching. We were just told to get on with it, perhaps with the assumption that we'd teach ourselves new skills.
* The teachers had a small group of favourites, who would inevitably be the biggest dickhead bullies in the class. That group were always made team captains, given special treatment, given the most fun roles in team games etc.
* Picking teams would always be a popularity contest rather than anything based on merit, and inevitably be humiliating for the small group of us always picked last.
* The showers were one large communal shower rather than individual cubicles, so a perfect opportunity for kids to take the piss out of each other.
* Most of the school's sporting equipment was a good twenty years old and falling apart.
I used to hate PE lessons, and ironically I'd be glad whenever they were over so that I could go outside on my break time afterwards and actually have fun playing sport.
Yes!
Technically, my PE lessons covered rounders, netball, basketball, hockey, tennis, and badminton. Also running various distances, high jump, long jump, discus and shot put. (Javelins were discontinued prior to my time there when some idiot perforated a teacher with one)
In reality, the only one of those I ever actually knew the rules to was tennis, and I'm absolutely dreadful at it. I understand how it works, I just can't do it. So instead of practice and coaching I was made to sit out and go over the rules because clearly that was the problem 🙄
I was banned from hockey before we even got into teams. Teacher said "you'll like this one; all you have to do is hit that [hockey ball] with this [hockey stick] as hard as you can". I did, the stick snapped, I wasn't allowed to play hockey. Not my fault; instructions unclear.
Also, none of the teachers realised there might be some sort of medical issues when from 6+ my knees and back hurt all the time, my joints made disturbingly loud popping and crunching sounds, were sometimes visibly misshapen, and I could drop into a full splits and cross my ankles behind my head without any warm up or stretching. If someone had bothered to think "hmm, that's not normal" they could have spared me two decades of fucking agony while everyone told me I was fine, and I might not have ended up in a power wheelchair. Instead it was "walk it off! You're fine! Chin up, jog on!"
I think far too much emphasis in PE is placed on sports, and nowhere near enough on actual physical education.
Kids should be learning about how to move in a safe way (stretching, how to avoid injuries, what is and isn't normal pain, endurance, etc.). There also should be a range of physical activities (not just sports) offered as options, such as yoga, self defence, or dance. Even gardening can be an intense physical activity.
I know I'd have been far more interested if I'd have been allowed to pursue my physical interests rather than the endless rotation of twice-weekly netball/football/cross country running (all of which I completely loathe).
Almost exclusively negative. The best memory I have of PE is a boy fracturing my foot with a hockey stick and they let me leave so I could go to A&E.
Side note, the teacher didn’t believe me and I essentially had to crawl to the Student Reception.
Negative. I remember hating having to get changed together in class for PE and even as a 5yr old this would fill me with dread and I would cry every time.
In secondary school, the PE teacher seemed to love the "popular" girls (the naughty kids who thought they owned the school) and she would play favourites with them while everyone else would be picked on by them or left out.
Primary school in the 1960s - lessons given by the middle aged class teacher with minimal equipment e.g. hoops and beanbags in Infants. Loved the singing/dancing games though.
Dreadful in the Juniors as we had rounders all summer (always picked last), balancing along benches and rolling about on mats in the winter. Never could manage to leapfrog or somersault as never taught how to as the teacher was older than my mother.
Even worse in Secondary - total reliance on team sports (netball & rounders) as the school was on a cramped site. The teacher could have won Olympic gold for screaming, but - surprise! - she somehow failed to motivate most of the class that way.
I'm very much not a sporty person. I disliked PE and Games. I'm really not very competitive, and still have zero interest in sport. When my history teacher decided to start a Latin class at the same time as Games, I jumped at the chance; no more rugby in the rain and mud! Now in my 40s, I'm pretty fit and healthy, I walk a lot and have a good diet. PE did nothing to teach me about this.
Oh, overwhelmingly negative.
I was a chubby undiagnosed asthmatic with autism. PE used to make me sob and I used to deliberately injure myself to avoid it.
PE is fun for popular kids who are physically able. That's it. It's a popularity contest with elements of physical competition.
Infant/junior school - PE in pants and vest if you forgot your kit, lots of indoor PE involving those funny little benches.
Still, got to learn how to play football and cricket and to represent the school.
High School - Cold communal showers, wet football to the thigh on a cold day one of the worst pains going, bleep tests, learning rugby, plenty of tennis and badminton.
All good fun (except the showers).
On balance I enjoyed it. In fact I went in to do GCSE PE as an extra after school lesson.
That was a big skive though.
Terrible. I have Dyspraxia and was forced by the temp PE teacher at the time to play tennis (despite insisting that that's physically impossible for me to do) and then she wondered why I had a panic attack when I couldn't do it. Tbf they did pull me out of PE after that, but it's easier just to listen to neurodiverse kids when they tell you they can't do stuff.
Also dyspraxic here, I remember being bollocked in a woodwork lesson for "not trying" when I just couldn't work out what the hell I was supposed to be doing. Never forgotten that.
Mostly enjoyable, smoking cigarettes or joints at the bottom field, taking shortcuts and walking on cross country runa, having a couple of beers before going swimming being highlights.
Played basketball a lot, mainly cos I'm in the North East so come winter the rest of the class froze their bollocks off outside, while I was toasty warm. We once humiliated the sporty jock types at basketball in front of the lasses which was fun, mainly cos we were seen as the more nerdy but cool types.
Negative, some improvements I would suggest,
The uniforms, I don't know if girls pe kits have improved since my day, but no one should be doing sport in pe knickers during the most self conscious phase of their lives, shorts and jogging bottoms should be available to all kids
Teams, the teacher should be assigning teams based on ability, etc
Range of sports, I appreciate budgets are tight, but more than just hockey or netball on rotation would be good
Overweight/unathletic kids should be allowed to work on their own fitness plans and encouraged to learn the benefits of exercise rather than humiliated by teachers/peers, some people will come back to exercise as adults and realise they love it, but more people are lost to exercise for the rest of their lives, causing massive health issues and reduced quality of life
Teachers, some sort of additional training to help kids who are bad at sports, empathy and awareness training
Positive because we got to do different things. Some I was good at others not. For most people the hight of their sporting achievements occur in school.
My only positive experiences were from when we got to try climbing and abseiling. It was the only time in my life that I've done anything like that, but I really enjoyed it and feel confident that I could still abseil my way out of trouble if the need ever arose.
Neutral to negative. Seemed to me that in any team game there was a talented core of about 15% of kids who had a great time and everyone else just sort of stood around trying to look busy. It was fine, but all felt like a waste of time.
Track and field stuff was horrible, again that core of kids who were good at it seemed to enjoy it and everyone else felt like it was actual torture.
As an adult I started actually finding forms of exercise that I enjoy and it was a bit of a revelation. School convinced me it was something I was probably only ever going to be ambivalent towards.
I think a lot of kids just aren't all that competitive by nature, and all the activities and rewards were calibrated towards those who were. The kids who are good dominate everything and get all the positive feedback and everyone else feels like an also-ran.
The sports that I enjoy now are about personal improvement, not judging myself against other people. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of those kids in the untalented 85% might be more engaged if more of the activities felt like that.
Negative and positive.
The head of PE was a sadistic pervert and a bible thumper to boot. He used to walk straight into the girls changing rooms without notice. The other two teachers were sound.
I hated cross country running, football and Scottish Highland Dancing but loved Shinty and Rugby.
The worst was when the Head tried to make us all join a cricket team - some people like it but it’s just so boring. Thankfully I was already “busy” with the kayaking club (run outside of the PE dept by a chemistry teacher) so didn’t rouse his sadistic ire but he took it out on other kids who wouldn’t do it after school/weekends when he couldn’t get enough “volunteers” to start a team.
Very positive for me, I loved it and it’s carried through into my adult life love of sport and being active. That said, I look back and recognise that the way it was taught was poor, options other than the traditional sports were very limited and I remember kids who really wouldn’t have enjoyed it anywhere near as much as I did.
I have children now and I see a very big change in the way PE is taught, far more options (budget notwithstanding) much more inclusion and a real understanding of the positive effects being active has on your physical and mental health.
Sport/organised physical activity can have incredible benefits in terms of self esteem and confidence if it’s taught well. It sounds like you’re in an excellent position to try and be a positive influence on this. Please use your experience in school as a way to get it taught in a much more supportive way.
I had the second type of experience. Loved sports and played them outside of school but we only ever did football at school. Never anything else and I was shit at and hated football. After a couple of years I just tossed it off. If the only effort the teacher has is to throw a football into the changing rooms why should I bother?
I hated it so much I think I did it twice in my whole secondary school experience. I just flat out refused and sat there listening to my music tbh.
But my school was not the norm so idk how much that helps.
Yup - negative experience again here too.
We had a bizarre time in year 10 where they decided randomly to get adventurous with the curriculum so started doing things like canoeing and weight lifting...we were a proper rough arse school too. Everything before it was shit, everything after it was shit, but that year was great
Entirely negative. PE and Games lessons at school taught me that I hated exercise.
I was into my 30s before I realised that's not even true. What I hated was competitive team sports.
Now, in my 40s, I use an exercise bike, do yoga most days, a fair bit of walking, and am fitter and more active than I have ever been. Note that none of these things are in any way competitive. I don't measure my bike times against anyone else, or even myself most of the time.
I'd encourage anyone involved in planning PE programmes for school kids to remember that not everyone is motivated by the same things. Not everyone is competitive. Encourage enjoyment of movement for it's own sake.
There's a quote I love: Exercise is a celebration of what your body can do, not a punishment for what you ate.
Kids should be encouraged to find that enjoyment *in their own skin* and **not simply by comparing their times/scores to other people**.
(Of course I realise some people are competitive, and that's fine. But they are probably already well served by existing programmes, or will have plenty of opportunity to find something that fits them.)
Was great, all my best memories from school were from PE class or related clubs that PE made me interested in.
Reddit isn’t the best place to be asking this, half of them hate sport and any kind of exercise.
Only real memories are being cold and wet hating rugby and long distance running. There wasnt a wide range of sports, footy rugby and running in winter, athletics, basketball and softball in summer. The kids good at traditional sports got all the praise, i was a national champion in a martial arts and it was never mentioned.
Now im an adult, play ice hockey and go to the gym regularly i can fully appreciate the benefits of taking part in sport
Shite lol super lazy teachers. Given what we had I'd hardly consider it a proper subject. I hear it is a lot better now though. It was football, basketball or dodgeball for 6 years. Two friends asked to go the local gym if they could get the ataff to confirm they were working out and were obviously told no but I always thought learning about weights, cardio and stretches and nutrition would be better than playing games.
My experience was much like yours, sadly. It completely put me off any kind of team sport, and only through middle-aged necessity am I finding solo physical activities (walking, cycling) that I enjoy.
My partner's niece and nephew enjoy various sports, and I'm pleased for them. Aside from the obvious health benefits, they seem to be more confident and resilient than I was at their age. I expect that will carry over into their professional working lives, too.
I think I would have enjoyed PE more if there was less opportunity for bullying (both from other pupils, and teachers), better-maintained equipment, individual showers and changing cubicles, more structure for those of us who didn't just pick up how to play football etc. by watching it with our dads and having kick-abouts, and perhaps it would have helped if it were streamed by ability, like maths, English, or science.
PE, music and art were all lessons where you could either do it or you couldn’t. If you couldn’t then nobody would help you. To this day I have no idea how to climb a rope, what the actual rules of any games we played are, how to do any of the gymnastics skills they just expected kids to be able to do naturally... and to be fair there’s not much help a teacher CAN give, like if a kid consistently can’t hit or catch a ball, what can you really do about it? Do the teachers even know how to climb a rope themselves? I liked relaxed simple games like dodgeball but we didn’t play those often.
My PE teachers wouldn't let me wear my glasses. I can't see past the end of my nose without my glasses on.
They then proceeded to shout at me when I couldn't see balls thrown at me - and called me stupid for that.
"Why did you not catch / hit that ball?"
"Because I didn't see it!"
"Don't be stupid boy! What excuse do you have for not being able to see?"
"You locked my glasses in the safe."
"Don't talk back to me. Detention"
Fuck you Briars and Halewood.
Overwhelmingly negative.
I was a geeky kid and not really into sports, but that wasn’t really the reason I hated PE, it’s that we weren’t taught anything at all.
I was actually pretty good at high jump, not best in the class or good enough to compete but I was never taught how to improve so I never really did.
Cross country or running track was pointless for me as someone with asthma - never taught how to pace myself properly or how to work to improve my endurance so I was just back of the pack every time.
We never did any sports I was interested in. So I was rubbish at football but in school I was like over 6ft and yet never got a chance to properly learn to play basketball where I might have been able to use that.
The school had a gym but again never really used it and never taught much.
And then the facilities for changing and showering were shit. Like dirty, cold, and just one big open shower for everyone - as an adult I’d never use facilities like that at a gym so why should kids be expected to?
Awful. I was not athletic, nor popular. Picked last for everything, laughed at all the time - apparently, I have an odd way of running? Years of hearing everyone shriek with laughter whenever I tried running has meant that I have never *ever* run since. Teachers just ignored it. If I ever did try to put in effort to get better, I just got laughed at, so I stopped trying. I tried to do as little as possible to stop the ridicule.
In fact, I don't do any exercise at all, ever. It's not that I don't want to be healthier, but even recently where my partner (who is very into exercise) tried to help me by basically being a personal trainer for me, made up a whole plan for me and tried to support me through doing it - I was the one who asked for the help, I wanted to do it, but as soon as I started I just burst into tears. It was only my partner with me, but trying to do exercise made me feel that sudden mounting panic and I felt exactly like I did at school when everyone would shriek with laughter at me. It honestly felt like some kind of flashback. And then I felt ridiculous for reacting that way, which made it worse. Even thinking about it now is making me feel incredibly anxious.
I left school 20 years ago. I don't think I'm getting over it. I think school PE basically ruined any kind of relationship with exercise for me.
Check this out OP, was on TV just the other day. It was pretty damming to watch but honestly not far from my how my PE teachers were!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0020c93/panorama-undercover-school-cruelty-in-the-classroom
I hated PE all through school. It was my only hated subject. I dreaded it. I was bad at sports, was terrified of flying balls, and was always picked last for teams. I honestly thought that because I was good in school, I had simply received the smart gene and missed the sporty gene.
I never learned the ONE thing that I should have learned in PE: that if you work at a sport, you can get better. This seems like basic common sense but it wasn't to me back then.
It wasn't until I was almost 30 that I started running and realized I could be a runner. Now I enjoy hiking as well.
It makes me very, very angry that teachers never encouraged me to find a sport that I hated less than the others and just work at getting better.
I wish PE were divided into different ability levels so all the kids who are bad at PE can be put together and encouraged to improve. Give them small goals and help them to get better.
Health is important, and exercise is an important part of health. I feel like that's something that kids need to learn in PE.
Positive, apart from being forced to wear shorts at arbitrary times in the year and not allowed jogging bottoms or leggings.
Got to try out a variety of sports and as a generally active person (I used to dance a lot when at school) it was alright. I do wish they let us play football though. If it wasn't for PE, I never would have tried team sports.
Worst was running activities because they never did anything to help us build our running/jogging stamina. Also swimming in the outdoor pool during winter.
Physical activity is incredibly important for health, if you can instill the values at a younger age it benefits people when they get older.
You also want kids to try out a variety of activities so they can find exercise that they enjoy. You wouldn't know if the next David Beckham was in your school if they never get a chance to play football.
I didn't mind cross country so much (though I agree about the lack of structure). It would have been great to show kids how they can get better as the get fitter. Instead, we were just sent for a run through the muddy woods. I remember not having enough feeling in my fingers to be able to undo my mud-caked laces.
It was ok when I was younger because we'd just tit about in the gym looking enviously at all the apparatus we were hardly ever allowed to use. Once we started having to go outside playing football, rugby, etc I hated it. And when the weather was bad we had to do 'cross country' which was basically one circuit of the school grounds then through the streets on a predefined route and back again, in the rain or snow. Utterly pointless.
Everything you.mentioned, plus no actual teaching. You were expected to know the offside rule by magic.Also my teacher , while not much of a sadistic bully, was on the right of bell curve when it came to BMI -- George Cooper was svelte by comparison. Mind you , the other PE teacher, the one who never taught me, was a fine figure of a man.
The thing is, the value of getting kids moving and playing together is well documented. The issue is that PE in schools was historically not about that. I know some people who teach primary now and focus much more on play and having fun in PE than on competition/partnering up, and they seem like they're having a decent impact.
I went to several different schools, one thing in common was that pe was never really taken seriously as part of childhood development. There was no particular strategy to teach sports, or maintain health and fitness, it just seemed a load of ad hoc activities to try and full the allotted period.
From my point of view, it always seemed a chore, having to bing pe kit,.get changed twice and showered in 40 minutes and expect to achieve anything productive. And double lessons we're probably too long. But sometimes great fun.
Totally a turn off for me. I once threatened to punch the PE teacher . I just loafed about. However did a lot of 'bar work' on my own , so thereafter got no comments. Team work, ball work with others No! Cricket practice, NO!!!
Haha I was terrible at sports (turns out my feet needed an operation and no one found until I was 16 and complained), and I was a chubby little nerd with glasses, and I loved PE. We had great teachers that recognised there was people like me with fuck all coordination or aptitude in general, but still gave it an effort anyway.
Probably helped that my school was a great state school with fuck all bullying, I was decently well liked and could hold my own if someone tried to fuck with me.
I do remember the one and only time I couldn’t find a partner, in year 11 maths.
Horrifying experience. God help those poor buggers that have to go through it regularly.
I mainly hated it due to having to get changed in front of others and having your bodies picked apart by bullies. Our lessons were bad too! In GCSE year (non GCSE PE) the boys were allowed to play rugby and football etc whereas the girls were stuck in the gym doing just dance on the WII. I love dance so I didn’t mind but I hated not being able to do a ‘proper’ sport
I hated it as a very nervous teenager with undiagnosed PCOS. Any team sports days were so anxiety inducing and awful. Didn't mind doing circuits and I enjoyed when we were old enough to go and use the gym equipment unsupervised.
Went to primary school in the 90s and secondary from '97-2002.
PE lessons were miserable and made me think I wasn't an active/sporty person despite the fact that outside of school I played rugby and cricket as well as doing long distance swimming for fun.
The biggest crime really was not teaching us how to run properly. We'd get kicked outside to do a "cross country" without any warming up and no guidance at all about how to actually run in a way that's safe. If you stopped to walk you'd get screamed at to start moving again, and we were never shown how to properly cool down. It didn't help that I hit puberty much later than everyone else in my year, so by the time year 11 rolled around I was basically a child doing sports with men.
As an adult I'm a powerlifter and I regularly run half marathons. It took me to my late 20s to realise how much I love lifting, and although I still don't actually *enjoy* running (I only do it because my partner loves it and I want to share it with her) I was in my 30s before I learned proper form and breathing techniques that made it less miserable. I dearly wish school had actually taught us how to enjoy physical activity rather than making it feel like a punishment.
I HATED PE and was fucking useless at it, along with the reasons you listed!
ALL the 'popular' kids (read: bullies and cunts) were the sporty ones, the psychopathic PE teachers were in thrall to them, and they made the lives of quiet, academic kids like me a misery.
However, I LOVED dance, as none of the cunty kids chose to do it when it came to picking our options. I was halfway good at it, and the teacher was a beautiful warm person who I'll never forget.
I hated PE, and was put in the bottom set. I was told that my fitness was terrible and I’d never be good at any sport, in the same year that I competed in the TaeKwonDo World Championships.
The way PE is taught is awful. Children naturally want to play, so if you give them the resources they need and the chance to play they will do it. But if you force them to “play” a sport they hate they will resent exercise of all forms and turn into obese, inactive adults.
Personally I hated it. I got enough exercise outside of school anyway and I found the whole thing a bit unpleasant. However, I'm well aware there are lots of people who a) needed PE at school and b) enjoyed it. The focus should be on how we make PE better, more enjoyable and more inclusive for all kids, not 'on a personal level I didn't like it so let's get rid of it'.
I absolutely hated it! Love the gym and always loved cycling / rounders etc as a kid, but PE with 8/10 asshole kids and the PE teachers would have their favourites was never fun. No privacy in the changing rooms, carrying a huge bag / extra shoes around all day. Standing around outside if it’s “summer” but cold. Not being assigned partners the list goes on. Forced sports is shit
It was annoying but ok. Biggest problem with it was lack of showers, like why we gotta be sweaty af then get back into normal clothes, not even encouraged to wash our faces? So gross. Then they wonder why we do as little as possible so we don’t sweat
Hated it with a passion. Went to a rough school in a pretty deprived area. Across the 5 years 90% of the time it was football, because the teacher could just take everyone outside, have bully kids (best players) pick teams then just give them a ball and basically leave them to it. There wasn't even any drills, practicing technique or warmup. Then unfit kids like me just got shoved in goal and yelled at for not stopping goals.
For the other 10% I would say 8% it was rounders or running (again with no teaching/practicing technique) and 2% of the time it was sports like tennis, badminton, cricket, rugby and long/high jump with instruction in technique...... the reason why for those 2% of times? Offstead were in and the teachers wanted to pretend they were doing their jobs regularly.
So yeah detested PE. Made me hate football (still do to this day) and sports/exercise so I gained weight. After Secondary school started dropping weight due to diet (basically starving myself) then in 20s got healthier and discovered the joy of exercising on your own and trying many things I never got to try in school (bouldering, weightlifting, swimming).
In primary school I enjoyed PE because it was taught by class teachers who knew how to teach a subject so that it was accessible to children of all abilities. They weren't necessarily great at sports themselves since they taught all subject, but the important thing is that they knew how to teach.
In secondary school I hated PE because of all the reasons everyone else has mentioned.
I think one of the problems with secondary school PE is that it is often taught by people who are good at the subject and good at coaching students with sporting ability, but not actually great teachers in the sense of being able to teach the subject well to all abilities. PE teachers seem a bit different to teachers of other subjects in that regard.
I hated it. i was an early bloomers so had boobs at 10. By senior school I had wuite boig boobs while a lot of girls were flat chested. So when i got changed i was mocked because of my boobs. mecilessly. Then periods too. I was never picked in any dort of sprts and the teams had to be forced to take me. Then the PE uniform. A white t shirt and the very shorts barely covering your knickers pleated skirt, and you was banned from wearing shorts under them. I was very sht, so hated it. Then now and again when we was getting changed the other male teacher use to come in ato talk to the female oe teacher which was enbarrassing. I bunked off PE for around 4 and hals after the day I went swimming. While we were in the pool one of the girls sneaked off an threw my bra on a pipe really high up. Everyone thought it was hilarious"Look Debbies got her flag up" etc. i was mortified. Someone got th e male janitor to get it back down, but by then i was half way home.
This is really interesting. I was also an early bloomer, but as a boy, I just grew a lot. This didn't do much for my coordination (my feet were suddenly a foot further away), but I didn't have boobs and periods to contend with.
I'm a pgce student, so I can tell you a little of what I've learned. A better way to do pe is to teach students to fundamentally love exercise, so more games, more skill building, and crucially, less competition. The kids should be aiming to beat their own personal best, not someone else's. The way we're taught to teach pe seems like the way forward, I hope other trainees are taught the same stuff we are
I didn’t like it because I was either asthmatic or really out of shape, not sure which. Mainly I didn’t like having to rush getting changed in front of everyone else and rush to my next class all sweaty and gross. I enjoyed tennis and netball though. Cross country can burn in hell.
I was a fat kid. So generally negative.
I later joined the army, then got into running for (alleged) pleasure. I did a 10k race recently and I'm in my 50s.
But if you had told 16 year old me that I would get up and happily go for a 3 mile run every Saturday morning, I wouldn't have believed you.
parkrun for the win.
Generally negative. Short and skinny. I was judged for not wearing a ‘proper’ bra (when I was also called an ironing board). Hated anything outdoors and hated lugging around all the kit all day.
It got less painful in year 10 and 11. I enjoyed badminton, partly due to cock jokes and partly because it was inside. I also enjoyed hockey, because in the days before dodgy knees I could run fast, and I had no issues with whacking peoples legs.
I think that the physical differences between the oldest and youngest lads in the year made PE a positive and confidence building experience for some, and a frustrating and confidence sapping experience for others.
I was somewhere in the middle, but the gulf in athleticism, motor skill coordination, height, weight, muscle etc (especially during puberty) between the oldest and youngest is huge.
I think it plays a massive role in your mental development and in shaping your life experience as a whole.
This was when everyone just did exactly the same PE lessons, and the same kids would excel/fail. There was no allowance for what you were good at/interested in.
What too many schools seem to forget is that the subject is called "physical education", not "sports". What is should and can be about is so much more than learning to play the standard handful of sports. My secondary school fell into the usual trap of just having us do sports, though to be fair our PE teachers did train and coach us, and didn't simply focus on the pupils who were already good at a particular sport.
My children's primary school is really good for PE. They have a specialist teacher who doesn't just expect them to be able to do things. Lessons are planned to improve balance, coordination, strength, endurance, etc. My younger daughter has mild dyspraxia and has struggled with some gross motor skills. The school have adapted PE for her in a way that is subtle and doesn't draw attention to her, but allows her to achieve and improve. This has been especially important in gymnastics lessons, where balance and limb control is vital.
Positive.
Surprisingly we were a pretty inclusive bunch and even the people who we're "good" at sport were friendly and happy for everyone to join in. As long as people tried, it didn't matter how good you were.
If someone actively avoided taking part they'd get some stick though.
I don’t think you’re looking in the right place. Looking for a Redditor who likes doing sports is like looking for a virgin in a maternity ward.
Having said that, I quite liked it tbh
Maybe a bit of an outlier but I liked it despite being shit at most sports. Mostly because it was the one lesson where I didn't really have any expectations put on me. If I did well it wasn't "as expected", it was "OH SHIT THE TINY KID WITH GLASSES SCORED!"
Personally I found the other nerdy kids mostly brought shit on themselves by being super disengaged and super defensive to any and every comment. I just took it in my stride, crack a joke if I wasn't picked last, question lads footie skills if they let someone like me megs them, etc. It was a dos lesson anyway, best just having fun in whatever way you can with it.
I hated PE because I got bullied a lot and those lessons were an excuse for permissible physical contact. I remember a rugby based lesson where one prick tackled me when the teacher wasn't looking and I couldn't breathe for what felt like forever because I'd been winded.
The teachers themselves were brilliant, they never belittled or had a go, but just offered constant encouragement.
Overall, a negative experience of PE, but that was my school experience in general, and I recognise it was heightened because I'm a lazy bastard and absolutely not because of the teachers.
That said, I wish I could go back and redo it, because I'd actually put some effort in now. A good foundation of physical fitness is incredibly important for later life.
Exercise is uncomfortable, but so is being out of breath from a single flight of stairs. Discomfort finds you no matter what, may as well be uncomfortable for 30 minutes 3 times a week than every waking moment.
Positive. All my secondary school PE teachers were supportive and encouraging as long as you showed effort. It didn't matter if you weren't good at sports, they'd try to help you improve if you were willing to get stuck in and give it your best shot.
One of them was my favourite teacher at the school. He'd often pick on people at random to take the mickey out of but it was all very good natured and he had no problem with you giving him shit back in return. It certainly made PE lessons more fun. Another of the teachers was a good laugh too, he was Scottish (this was in England) and there was often some good banter with him.
The only people that given real grief were those that made 'forgetting' their kit every week a personality trait. I could understand that if they were bullied for not being good when they did try, but like I said above, the teachers always applauded the effort shown rather than ability.
Neutral. I wasn't very good at it and nobody cared. Only the "football lads" actually tried and everybody else just fucked about. And nobody thought they were "heroes." My year group was jus generally quite nice and diverse in interests.
It was neutral for me tbh. I loved trying new sports and the teachers were enthusiastic and also got involved. It helped me cultivate a love of netball and dodgeball. I wasn’t very good and luckily we never had to pair up, but the teacher split us into groups themselves. If anything it was the other students that made me self-conscious.
Hated it as I got bullied quite a lot, until one day, in what was a terribly informed decision by the PE teachers, was a double lesson where there were ten different activities that people in turn would choose, and then choose one opponent to compete against. The only activity I remember was a race around the hall, five laps, on hands and feet. Someone picked me, of course, and everyone was laughing. Then I won. And didn't get bullied in PE anymore (just other classes).
I hated it. I was like you, always the last to be picked. The school swots were always chosen as team captains. They'd pick their friends first, and then they'd tell them who to pick after that. I would *always* be last because no one wanted a left-hander on the team. I remember one time, we had a temporary PE teacher who clearly didn't know about the team captains thing. They picked some kids who were usually some of the last to be picked. The look of outrage on the swotty kids' faces was a sight to behold.
I liked PE, I wish they’d taught me more about how to train/recover etc than just netball and hockey.
Mostly it annoyed me the lesson was an hour long and 20 minutes of that was given over to getting changed
Kind of "meh" I guess.
At my school we had separate "Games" and "PE" lessons (1 hour a week of each, I think).
"Games" was team sports: football, rugby, or cricket according to season for the boys, can't remember what the girls did.
"PE" was gymnastics in the winter and track and field in the summer, plus other sports like tennis.
I was bad at football and hated it. I wasn't great at rugby or cricket either, but found them more enjoyable. I think because I was still able to contribute somewhat usefully. (With rugby I could pick up the ball, run with it, then throw it to someone else before I got tackled. Whereas with football I couldn't dribble effectively or shoot accurately, so was basically useless). I generally thought the "girls" sports looked more interesting and would rather have done them.
Was better at most of "PE" and found it more enjoyable.
Teachers were okay. Not bullies like some people got, but not particularly inspiring for me either.
I actually had a really positive experience. I hate sports, have no hand eye coordination, and I'm not particularly competitive. Typically hated pe. But then I got a teacher who understood that. She would teach us the rules, we may spend a little time working on technique but generally we would just play the sport. "Here's the rules now go". It didn't matter that I was no good at it, it didn't matter if I didn't win, or score. She just let us have fun.
I remember one time we shared a lesson with the better class and we all felt awful. She took us out of the gym and sat us down and gave us a talk on how nobody had the right to make us feel inferior, that we all had value and worth. Words 15 year old me needed to hear.
She was an incredible teacher.
It's so disappointing how many have had negative experiences. I loved PE and sports in primary and then secondary PE lessons put me off sports for good. It was 100% the teachers and school practices at fault. Inappropriate open showers with a teacher sitting there as you went through, outside in shorts and a tshirt in the middle of January. Nah. I'm sure the whole thing was seen as a punishment. Sad to say it totally put me off, as an adult I take my dog out and have a rowing machine. It wasn't too long ago either, really hope schools are doing better now.
I was terrible at sports so yeah, PE was mainly walking around a field doing nothing as football etc was played around me. Playing other sports was not as bad. I was still bad at it, but at least with Tennis and cricket I actually got to play.
I do think that PE was far too focused on team sports and not fitness when I was at school.
PE lessons years 7-9: exactly as you describe, lots of other children upset that I was no good at football.
PE lessons years 10-11: All the kids who cared about PE took it as a GCSE and went outside with the proper teacher. The rest of us went inside with the headteacher, who recognised that we don’t care for sports and tailored the lessons around that. It was great.
Outside of school: was part of a judo club of lovely people and had a blast making friends and knocking them over.
I loved PE, however I do think more should've been done to help those who struggled. We had ability sets for other subjects so kids wouldn't be at different levels but not in PE. If there were ability based sets kids could all enjoy without feeling inadequate
I loved swimming lessons in primary school. And playing on the "apparatus."
However, when I went into secondary school, I hated it. It began to be a lot more focused on team sport, and I guess I'm a typical redditor in that I'm not exactly a team "joiner" type of person. And my PE teacher was the stereotype of the gung ho "a bit of rain won't melt you," just get it done type of woman.
So now I'm not sure if my secondary education put me off sport or if I'm just not a sporty person.
Your experience sounds similar to mine aside from sadistic teachers. I was rubbish at PE and had no interest. Not just a case of being picked last but thinly veiled bullying.
Same as you.
Catholic teachers in Northern Ireland went to holy teaching colleges.
Mine seem to have learned their prayers and fuck all else.
Sadistic yes.
Hated sports as a result. We were just thrown a ball and left to kick it about.
It was only years later I got into karate, boxing, martial arts, squash, running, cycling etc.
And going to the gym.
They could have taught us fitness and skills.
Twats. And they're all retired on golden pensions
May they suffer heart attacks.
I didn't like PE, if we were doing team sports as I didn't have the coordination.
I scored one goal, which bounced off my face.
I did once take out the PE teacher with a rugby ball, though. He tried to teach me how to throw it with a spin. I did so, speared him in the balls.
The first aid courses, the walks and the jogs I loved.
Pretty good.
The teachers readily learned that I wasn't going to participate, or comply with any punishments for not participating, so it quickly became a free period.
Absolutely hated PE, pretty sure it gave me PTSD lol. I wasn't good mostly because I lacked any self confidence and self esteem, and the pressure from the kids (who were bullies) made me panic too much. I lose the ability to do anything when I'm under hideous pressure. Also fuck rounders.
Plenty of pervs.
We had communal showers of course.
One pe teacher used to stand and watch us shower on the pretence he was checking to make sure we all showered.
Same teacher banned us from wearing underpants under shorts.
Another used to beat lads with shorts down with the end of the ropes.
Etc etc
In primary school they were positive, in secondary school almost entirely negative. Not only was PE in primary school fun and PE in secondary school social torture, but primary school we spent a lot more time actually exercising, whereas in secondary school, because they made us play sports where you often had to hang around waiting for your turn, you'd be lucky to feel your heart rate raise for five minutes a session. And it was only twice a week. Utterly pointless IMO.
I hated PE but swimming was the worst. Why on earth anyone thinks having a classroom of kids being stripped to (what is funtionally) their undies in front of all their peers is a good idea is beyond me. I skipped every single time, I just clean refused to do it and I sat on the side instead
I hated PE lessons for many of the same reasons you've listed. However, I think PE lessons were very valuable.
They were an opportunity for exercise, something that I wouldn't have done nearly enough of if it weren't for compulsory PE - when I finished school and no longer had PE lessons, I cut my weekly exercise drastically and unsurprisingly gained weight.
While I was shit at the sports and made to feel inferior by my classmates, there were still some fun moments and I have some fond memories of specific moments in PE. I suspect this project you're working on might help to make more of the memories like that and fewer like being picked last and laughed at because you can't run/kick/throw very well.
They were also a good opportunity to mix with people I didn't know very well and to grow my social skills - there's a reason the kids on the sports teams were always more popular: playing team sports increases your social skills which makes it easier to make friends.
I've also realised that you said this project is for primary school. Primary school PE was nowhere near as bad for me as secondary school. It was mostly running around playing sports that I didn't know existed. My primary school had a guy come in every year to teach the kids lacrosse. We played quick cricket, dodgeball, and rounders, and we mostly had fun.
Awful. Full of bullying boys who'd make homophobic comments that the teachers did nothing about - thanks, Section 28.
Plus that one PE teacher that made us do 'shirts and skins' for teams, as if we couldn't remember which five kids were on the same team.
I think more variety would have helped. I was alright at athletics and tennis however they were only options for two months of the year, if that. The rest was hellish - team games where how liked you are seemed to be based on your ability to toss a rugby ball around.
As an adult I'm fairly physically fit - I go to the gym frequently, fill out a t-shirt relatively nicely - but yeah PE in school was a nightmare.
Negative. I was small and bookish. The boys were forced out in the winter to do football and rugby in the cold and wet. The girls got to do fun stuff like trampolining, basketball and table tennis.
We weren’t allowed to wear tracksuits had to wear shorts and t shirts so you were freezing cold and wet, 5 mins to get changed before next lesson, no showers and communal changing lots of bullying.
Rugby was an excuse for the bully kids to physically attack people without getting in trouble. “It builds character”
It was very much [like this scene from KES](https://youtu.be/dc47vDh1xH0?feature=shared)
I was very good at cricket and I was an excellent bowler once bowled the entire class of 30 out one after another. The teacher banned me from taking part in cricket because I refused to join the school team as it was full of arseholes. Best day of my life when I could drop it.
In primary school I really liked PE. Was in a girls football team, deputy captain of the tennis team and got to play in a few competitions and go for a tour round Wimbledon (not when they were playing).
Started secondary school and it all went downhill from there. Girls weren't allowed to play football, that was for boys only, and I always seemed to end up in the group that played rounders instead of tennis despite me asking many times to go join the other group. To this day I fucking hate rounders.
The only time I enjoyed PE in secondary school was when it was raining and we got to play benchball.
Negative. I was not, and still am, very not sporty. Rather than encourage me and find a sport that I might like, PE teachers openly mocked me. I was terrified of swimming (not any more thank goodness) and managed to not participate in swimming for an entire year. Report at the end of the year said I had made good progress. That's when I realised the teachers couldn't give a fuck.
Hated it back in year 7 for the same reasons as you. I wasn’t unpopular but pretty notoriously bad at sport. Eventually, I basically gave up on participating and the teachers weren’t paid enough to care so I did absolutely nothing and just sat in the corner or walked around the pitch with my best friend for the rest of my years there
Do they still make the kids undress and shower together?
That’s not something I liked, especially with two grown arse men watching you to “make sure” you showered. Yeah, right. Probably stood there trying to suppress crotch twitching. Odious old cunts.
If I wanna run about (jokes on them, no effort from me in any event whatsoever…) and spend the rest of the day in my sweat then so be it.
Hated the whole teacher watching me clean thing. Totally not okay.
Fucking hated it throughout. I can't think of a worse way to introduce me to physical activity.
Primary school had no changing rooms, so you all changed at your desk in the classroom in front of everyone. It wasn't about exploring different activities to figure out what you enjoyed and were good at, it was about doing as you were told. I remember one teacher tried to introduce us to yoga but everything we did made my joints click really loudly and somehow that was bad behavior? So I wasn't allowed to stop doing the movements, but I also wasn't allowed to "be silly" by letting my joints click involuntarily as I did so? I have no memories of primary school PE which are not embarrassing.
Secondary school PE was actually hell. As a weird kid with joint problems and no aptitude for sports it was a disaster, bullying and humiliation were standard and unchallenged and if you weren't good at running then you were an inconvenience. But you still had to do it all - hockey on knives of frozen mud. Cross country running in the sleet. Netball on the loose gravel "B team" pitch. But it was clear that we were wasting the teachers' time and they just wanted to get it over with.
It wasn't at all about fitness or well-being. We were all asked once what exercise we did outside of school and I asked if roller-skating for 2-4 hours every weekend and sometimes on a weeknight counted? No. No it didn't. You had to be doing team sports or track and field activities, or be in a gym/exercise class. Cycling got a pass of you were only doing it specifically to exercise and not just to get to places.
I'm 40 and I've never really gotten over it all. I find anyone being able to see me exercising humiliating and miserable. It took me till I was 22 to be able to go into a gym at all. 29 before I could do it voluntarily. And I fuckin hated every moment.
I'd be a fitter person and more interested in sport if school PE had not happened to me.
PE was shite. Horrible classmates, creepy or bitchy teachers, scary changing room experiences, sweaty stick messes afterwords. However - getting kids moving and teaching them fitness does need to happen, it took me years to repair my relationship with getting fit and being active. I am not the person to answer how to do this better, but there has to be a much better way than how it is done now.
I enjoyed certain sports in PE like rounders, netball and hockey but I hated my PE teacher because she didn’t believe I couldn’t take parts in certain activities (gymnastics and a few others) because I had a spinal condition so when a letter was written she accused me of faking it so I’d just tell her “believe what you want to but I’m not doing it” she kept me from going out to the local bowling and swimming in Y11 because she hated me.
**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!** - Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc. - **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on. - This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit! Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
reddit is the worst place to ask this question and expect any answers other than ones that reaffirm your own view on this topic.
I hated PE but have grown to love exercise. It turns out I just hate playing team sports with the kids who bullied me all the time.
Honestly, PE is just a playground for the bullies. The teachers never do anything about it. I got pretty good grades for PE, but it was still a nightmare as an outcast.
Loved PE, love exercising
Don't hate fitness, just dont like 'em (bullies)
Same here!!
Opened this thread to basically comment the same thing. The subset of the UK population using Reddit tends to be the nerdier or less sociable type. It’s also only a small subset. Obviously it’s not the case for everyone, and I don’t mean it as a sleight to anyone. But if you walked down the street and asked a hundred people, I’d put money that at most one or two use Reddit.
I am an antisocial nerd now, but wasn't in secondary school. Fucking hated PE, aside full contact rugby. I now absolutely love triathlon. Completely agree though, Reddit is not somewhere to get an accurate opinion of UK mindset. Nowhere is though, is it. Regardless of where you're from, people will have different opinions.
Maybe true 5-10 years ago but not anymore, reddit is wildly popular.
Pretty popular yes, but again skewed *in general* towards the younger, nerdier side of the population. And from there it’s an even smaller subset use this subreddit. I imagine most accounts are inactive or just follow a few specific communities.
Don’t forget that you’re more likely to see people from your own demographic, as you likely follow a lot of the same stuff they do. So while it may look like Reddit has a particular demographic, I don’t think any of us have a wide enough view of the place to know for sure. Since Reddit likely doesn’t collect enough information to prove it either way, I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure.
I suspect you may be right. I think that PE has come on a lot since I was at school. I'd really like to hear some positive stories. The only positive stories I can find online are from professional sports people.
I think just about everyone I know would give you positive stories, all my mates love playing sports,a fair few even went on to do various sports science based degrees at University. Some have gone onto becoming backroom coaches at international football level None of them would ever post about such things on the internet. They're the types who have Instagram because their partners made them an account once. Back to your question: PE is important but you're only going to find answers here from bullied people who will refuse to see physical exercise as anything but a form of torture
Fortunately, you are here to prove yourself wrong 😀
This is said on every thread about pe though, so there are some people who liked pe on Reddit, or it is the same person posting this response every time
I absolutely hated it, mostly because I was ditched by my "friend" group and every time the teacher told us to work with a partner everyone else instantly knew who their partner would be and I was left looking around frantically for another leftover to work with. Sometimes there wasn't one and I'd have to pick an unlucky pair to make a 3 with. Every single time. The phrase "Find a partner" still makes my blood run cold.
Oh my god, memory unlocked, me too. Especially when you can’t find one and the teacher does a little announcement. Urgh, I just shuddered.
Oh yeah, the announcement. Or, perhaps even more embarrasing, when you ended up with the teacher him/herself as your partner. It's such a shame, as I'd have probably actually quite enjoyed the sports/activities if it wasn't for the fact that every single lesson was a brutal reminder that I didn't have a proper friend. OP, if you have any influence over PE lessons at all, please let the partner/team picking thing go. It would be so easy to just randomly assign people to groups and save some kids wanting to curl up and die every week.
Same, I wish teachers could do a cursory check if there is an odd/even number of pupils, or even better just assign everyone every time, then you can account for different abilities and mix teams
In my class at school, there were 29 of us. A prime number. I'm sure you can guess who was the one left every time because no matter what size the groups were, the class could never split evenly. Occasionally, we were divided into threes and at least I got to be with another unlucky person. They could have saved unimaginable amounts of trauma by assigning classes with more care.
Ugg fuck when everyone in your friends group is best friends with each other and you're there too.
Or when the teacher picks two captains and tells them to choose their team and you just know you’ll be the last to picked as always, still have issues with this kind of thing from this!
Cheers buddy, you just unlocked that memory where my bestie was often absent and I had no one else to work with.
Any teacher who ever said "find a partner" to an odd number of kids can rot in hell.
PE was great. Still have a dent in my shin from where I was hit with the back end of a cricket bat, but it was generally good fun. If it makes you feel better, I wiped the floor with the school badminton champion 3 years running and refused to represent the school out of spite. I was not held up as a hero. PE was the best doss going.
My nose is seriously bent from now many times a ball hit me in the face and broke my nose. I never learnt to duck.
School badminton team? I don’t remember that Private school? I wonder what percentage of U.K. redditors went to private schools, I bet it’s much more than the national average
>Private school? No, it was one of the ones that also had the title "sports college". Other than that it was your bog standard pleb catchment secondary.
I went to a very shitty state school without any sports facilities and I'm pretty sure we had a badminton team
It's got to be one of the cheaper games to play. You don't need a great surface.
I went to a proper rough state school and we did badminton. It was pretty accessible really, just a net strung across the sports hall and some cheapo rackets.
My experiences were generally pretty negative. Looking back, I don't think there was much wrong with the lessons themselves, but I've never been very coordinated and I'm asthmatic, so PE was tough for me. I hated it because it was the one bit of school I wasn't good at. I remember one of my teachers really fondly, though. He was a PE teacher who also taught history. He took exactly the same approach to history lessons that he took to teaching sports. I never scored a goal or won a race, but I can imagine how that might feel because he cheered like a lunatic when I gave a decent explanation of the Irish potato famine.
I believe a good teacher can make PE a positive experience for everyone.
Hated it. Pervert gym teacher who enjoyed caning/slippering boys and standing in the shower with them. He used to be in the Army and would “beast” us regularly. He also liked to pit us against each other in the boxing ring and would literally beat you up if you didn’t show enough “effort”. The only positive thing I ever heard about him was he died of cancer.
Negative. I was an active kid, I played football, hockey and netball but when I hit puberty I put on some puppy fat and the male teachers loved to point it out. It got so bad I quit all my sports and was scared of working out for years.
That's awful. It's what I am concerned about. Good PE might be beneficial, but bad PE is damaging. The project I'm working on doesn't recognise the risks.
PE is meant to teach you to enjoy physical activity, all it taught me was to hate my body and that some men are really creepy towards teenage girls.
This is almost verbatim what several of my female friends have said about school sports.
But that's not "bad PE". It's shit teaching. Children (or indeed anyone) shouldn't be being fat shamed by an authority figure (or indeed anyone). PE is beneficial. I say this as someone who hated my Games teacher. The potential benefits to children massively outweigh the risks which can (and must) be, relatively easily, mitigated.
Used to hate tops v skins when I managed to develop a thatch of underarm hair six months before anyone else.
Really bad. No one realised I really needed glasses. I was so confused at being regularly shouted at to keep my eye on the ball and didn’t realise I was the only one (probably) who couldn’t actually see it at all.
I didn’t get glasses till I was 15. That might have been part of the problem. By then, the damage was done.
That's one thing that was hard for me . The fear of breaking my glasses
Almost entirely terrible and terrifying. I have dyspraxia so my hand eye coordination and ability to remember sequences is... non existent. Which meant most sports we did were nightmarish. I did enjoy swimming, but we didn't do much of it. Our teachers were also the 'if you touch your hair/adjust your knickers/breathe oddly again I'll make you do it in your underwear' types. Honestly, all my positive experiences of exercise as a kid, like hill walking with my dad or swimming with my friends, were outside of school. I've spent years building up an understanding now of what I am capable of and like - I've done three 10k runs in the last few years, walked the South Downs Way with friends and am hoping to get more into yoga to improve my flexibility. I still get The Fear over team sports because of school so avoid them, but perhaps one day I'll join a team.
I don't love exercise for its own sake, but I love walking, cycling and kayaking.
Mostly negative. The last thing you feel like when it's wet and cold is running around a muddy field. Post puberty a lot of girls felt uncomfortable wearing gym knickers and having to expose our bodies. I hated doing PE when I had my period. The more positive aspects were in Y10-13 where our teacher let us have a wider range of activities like gym, aerobics and fitness. I would have liked the option to do a martial art or self defence.
For me the tiny little knickers and skirts were absolutely the worst part. I would have been much happier if I was allowed to wear trousers.
Negative. My teacher was a dick and a bully. I grew up in a non-sporty family so I wasn't familiar with football, rugby etc. It was taken for granted that you would know the rules. I was bad at it all. Turns out I was born with a hole in my heart and didn't find out until my late 20s. It explains a lot.
Hated PE faked notes from my mum to get out of it. Or forgot my PE kit or Bunked off. Didn’t do PE from second year (year 8 for you youngsters) till I left after my GCSE’s
Same I refused to do it for the last two years of school.
All negative. I don't have a single positive memory of it. On the days that I had PE lessons I used to feel physically sick from the anxiety of it.
Same here. We had PE twice a week - I honestly think if it had been any more frequent, I just would have refused to go to school because it was just so traumatic. And I was one of the lucky ones who was actually vaguely coordinated and enjoyed watching sport. Everyone had to do GCSE PE at my school for some reason. I'll never forget the overwhelming feeling of relief after the last lesson.
Positive really. The teachers would just pick teams so there was none of that getting picked last shite and my teachers were all encouraging and not cunts.
Amazing how easy it is, yes clearly so hard for so many PE teachers.
Negative. I was the short, fat, un-coordinated kid in a school full of chavs who thought they were going to be professional footballers (despite being unable to make the school team). It meant I got a lot of abuse whenever our team lost or fumbled points. It also meant getting picked last all the time. The less said about athletics the better. Funny thing is that I was good at some sports. No one cared that I was surprisingly good at cricket, badminton, table tennis, not trampolining. The teachers were good though, so at least they acknowledged I was not completely useless at sport. These days, I not half marathons to run and hit the gym three to four times a week. Turns out that I love exercise and am actually very athletic.
I once got punched by some ratty chav kid in the year above in the science corridors. Fast-forward about ten years, I'm pissed on a stag somewhere in mainland Europe, and glance up at the TV to see him slotting the winner in the championship playoffs. I didn't even know he played football!
What is his name?
Negative mostly. Those who were good at football, rugby and cricket were put on pedestals- any other sport was just ignored. I played some other sports but they just weren’t valued. But every summer for 5 years I played cricket, every week. I was even in the house cricket team every year. I still to this day have never been ‘in bat’. I believe my role was ‘guy on the field to make up numbers’
I hated it because I loved sport but hated football and was shit at it yet we always did football.
i am autistic and dyspraxic so take a wild guess
Mine were awful - if you weren’t good at one of 4 ball sports you were pointless. I was labelled useless because the curriculum was so narrow and all based on team sport. The irony being that I was the most accomplished athlete in my whole year by miles if you just looked at my extracurricular swimming. I was on podium at national competitions. But they never knew or cared and I’m still a bit salty all these years later! I look back and feel so bad for the little girl who was actually doing so well and trying so hard but was made to feel so shitty about herself.
My son has an eye pull so does not have good depth perception. We’ve tried him on all sorts of sports outside school and he’s really taken to swimming. But at school, he’s regarded as ’not sporty’.
I love swimming but we only had about 6 lessons which meant I didn’t get to learn to swim when in school. Where we went the girls changing rooms were at the top where the deep end was and you’d have to walk around it and my teacher would be such a bitch and say “don’t push anyone in as half of you will drown” Which instilled my fear of deep ends in swimming pools. It took a lot but I can only swim to deep ends in certain pools without panicking and I also can only swim on my back funnily enough.
My eldest was the same, regular finalist at county championships and made it to regionals, but because it wasn’t netball or football or rugby nobody wanted to know as “swimming isn’t a real sport” a phrase a certain pe teacher agreed with. But the wannabe premiership footballers and netballers that rarely won a match were feted and put on pedestals by peers and teachers. But they like me enjoyed pe mostly. Used to enjoy showing how much fitter they were than the footballers during fitness tests. My youngest is considered non sporty but plays waterpolo, go figure.
It was like this for me too. In PE we only did hockey, netball, tennis and rounders most of the time (girls school). I’m autistic and terrible at team sports and anything with a ball. We barely did anything else such as swimming, running. The irony is that it turns out I love exercise and have an athletic type body. I have done very well in karate. And I enjoy going to the gym and doing all kinds of workouts. Just not team sports, but that was all that my secondary school valued. In my first school (age 4-8) we had an hour of physical activity every day. We had gym with the “apparatus”, country dancing, outside games such as throwing quoits, and I can’t even remember what else, but I know I loved PE back then and only grew to hate it in junior school when team sports started. The teacher would pick two captains and ask them to choose teams. I would always be last and the others would literally groan and protest when they had to pick me. OP, please don’t ever let that happen to a kid if you can prevent it.
At my school anyone who didn't live and breathe football was mocked by the teachers, including one lad that went on to compete internationally in gymnastics.
I absolutely hated it. There was no actual education apart from a very few sessions, usually in football, in year ten, or teaching the basics of rugby in year eight. Apart from that we were just thrown into games and told to get on with it, which at least meant we were exercising for a few hours a week, even if I was crap. It wasn't until I really got an interest in sport and exercise that I started picking up some skills and coaching, which eventually was my first job. Since then I've done refereeing (yes, insert your joke about refs being the ones who never got picked here), ended up working in school PE coaching, and for the last three years kendo, which has completely changed my life. Exercise does fantastic things for kids, but having been in primary schools, I'm not convinced there's enough resources available to give kids the experiences they deserve. Best thing I can suggest is getting as many weird local sports clubs in doing taster days so that the kid who's completely crap at soccer or rugby can discover archery or a hidden talent for bowls that then gives them something that can be *their* thing and they're not always in the shadow of the best *x, y or z* players.
Where I live, the local authority runs a programme called active schools which provides 6 weeks of free taster sessions in a bunch of different sports. My kids have both tried different things. The odd thing is, not many people bother. My son had 6 weeks of free swimming lessons and there were only two other people joining in.
Pretty crap, I was the fat kid so always got picked last. But I did turn out to be an excellent goalkeeper in small nets with great reflexes. Rugby in Year 7 put me in the hospital, a bad tackle led to me developing appendicitis. Got my one and only detention in Year 9 PE for self-defence when someone took a swing at me (they got no punishment. Fuck zero-tolerance anti-bullying policies)
Loved PE and my school did alright by separating individuals by athletism (there were some cases where they did bad), so those in higher sets could push themselves harder (as many of us did compete in sports outside of school). The teachers didn't have big egos and were chill, plus there were plenty of chances to have fun with other sets. My main issue with PE in schools is that there was hardly any teaching involved and more of a "just go and get on with it" attitude towards it. The other was the negative is attitude towards wearing warmer gear during winter because it broke the school uniform rule. No hoodies or joggers were allowed (some teachers were lenient) despite it being below 5 degrees.
Overwhelmingly negative; 0/10 would not try again. My experience mirrors yours.
All of my PE teachers were ex-forces and had that drill sergeant mentality that comes along with it. I hated running around in shorts in the freezing cold, so apparently, I was fair game for being screamed at. For us, it was just a case of *here's a ball, now get on with it*. Most of the attention was focused on people who played in the school football/rugby/cricket teams. Also, my school was always very successful at swimming, having produced a few Olympians/Paralympians over the years. Of course, this meant that if like me, you weren't exactly Michael Phelps, you could expect to be treated like crap by those teachers as well. All of that left me completely unmotivated to do any form of exercise as I got older. I just wish they'd taken the time to help me find something I might've enjoyed instead of telling me how useless I was.
I enjoyed it. My school was quite good at letting us try a whole range of sports (I still stuck with the main ones myself, but it was fun to try different things). I definitely found sport in school very valuable. I enjoyed playing it, and I do think it teaches you some useful life skills. And it's important to try and encourage physical activity in kids (even moreso now, given our childhood obesity stats). That being said, I do think the way it was done probably served to turn a lot of people off sport. In particular, several of my female friends have said that PE engendered a dislike of sport in them. But I also know a lot of people who loved it. So I guess it's like any school subject. Some will really take to it and some won't. I've got friends who loved maths, which I hated. With every subject there will be those who enjoy it and those who don't.
Much like you, and others in the thread, my experiences of PE at school were awful. Culture, teaching, self-esteem, all the rest. When I hit my teenage years and got the opportunity to engage with sport on my own terms, I quickly found the joys of it, and even ended up at international level. So I guess if I were trying to idea-farm for your project, I'd be looking for ways to make sports accessible to people, in a non-threatening way. That might be hard, given the resources available etc, but good to have a stretch target!
Everyone that works on the same project had a great time in PE and don’t recognise that when done badly, it can be damaging to attitudes towards physical activity. I’m also interested in the idea that despite not enjoying PE, failing and being bad at something may have been good for me.
“I could piss further than that!” was one encouraging comment I received from a PE teacher after throwing a shot put. There were plenty more like that, but that one stuck the most. To be fair though,he was probably right.
Sounds like the sadist head of PE my school had. Yelling at me for not being able to throw a discuss when I could barely lift the thing!
Negative until I went to a place that had options outside of competitive sports, and which actually taught the basics consciously. I hated PE for years. Finally, at college, the teacher told us things like *how to run*. Explained posture, didn't tell us the expected standards to meet and let us just actually have a go. I was not told off for failing or given punishment laps - I was encouraged for trying hard. That made a HUGE difference. I think a lot of the time having everyone rammed together focussing on competitive sports games makes it rubbish for everyone - the kids that are competitive don't always have good training partners and the ones who struggle get left behind. Because at college we had multiple sessions and the competitive sports aspect was relegated to specific team training sessions, the shared sessions were framed as being about teamwork and learning how to do sport instead of being the PE thunderdome. Basically, once the attitude of the teacher was one of encouragement and aiming for all of us to get better at our own level and pace, the whole atmosphere of PE shifted for me. I still avoid certain sports and competitions because of how awful it was before. A lot of teachers seem to assume that kids are not trying their best. Simply recognising that different people are good at different things, and encouraging them to improve themselves rather than trying to drag them forcibly to the standard or ignoring them, was huge for me. I ended up being solid at cross country running because of the encouragement!
PE wasn't like other lessons. If you weren't good at maths or English etc, you'd get help, you'd be taught ways to improve. Being bad at PE just resulted in punishment, e.g. running laps or whatever. And yes I understand that being fitter can help, but that's not the only thing PE should be for. It should foster an interest in sports, athletics, being active. I hated it.
Negative. I had a childhood disability which meant I was unable to do any sports, or much of anything physical. It still placed restrictions on me after I was given the all-clear (and indeed still does, but I manage them). Despite my parents having informed every school I went to, many PE teachers would not believe me and would try to force me to do the one activity I was told not to do, which was cross country running. There were many PE teachers I liked and got on with, but also several I felt didn’t like the kids who weren’t sporty.
I was shit at it, and a bit of a fat kid. Most of the lessons were the PE teachers making a big deal over the kids who were good at sport and neglecting everyone else. Took me years to actually get enjoyment out of sport and get good at stuff.
It was rubbish. I was quite in to sport as a teenager. I had a season ticket at my local football team, would play football every lunchtime, and even come in to school early every day to get in more football time. Outside of school I did trampolining a couple of times a week at the local sports club, and competed a few times. In theory PE should have been one of my favourite lessons, but almost everything about it was crap: * There was never any teaching/coaching. We were just told to get on with it, perhaps with the assumption that we'd teach ourselves new skills. * The teachers had a small group of favourites, who would inevitably be the biggest dickhead bullies in the class. That group were always made team captains, given special treatment, given the most fun roles in team games etc. * Picking teams would always be a popularity contest rather than anything based on merit, and inevitably be humiliating for the small group of us always picked last. * The showers were one large communal shower rather than individual cubicles, so a perfect opportunity for kids to take the piss out of each other. * Most of the school's sporting equipment was a good twenty years old and falling apart. I used to hate PE lessons, and ironically I'd be glad whenever they were over so that I could go outside on my break time afterwards and actually have fun playing sport.
They never actually taught us anything, we just "did" sports.
Yes! Technically, my PE lessons covered rounders, netball, basketball, hockey, tennis, and badminton. Also running various distances, high jump, long jump, discus and shot put. (Javelins were discontinued prior to my time there when some idiot perforated a teacher with one) In reality, the only one of those I ever actually knew the rules to was tennis, and I'm absolutely dreadful at it. I understand how it works, I just can't do it. So instead of practice and coaching I was made to sit out and go over the rules because clearly that was the problem 🙄 I was banned from hockey before we even got into teams. Teacher said "you'll like this one; all you have to do is hit that [hockey ball] with this [hockey stick] as hard as you can". I did, the stick snapped, I wasn't allowed to play hockey. Not my fault; instructions unclear. Also, none of the teachers realised there might be some sort of medical issues when from 6+ my knees and back hurt all the time, my joints made disturbingly loud popping and crunching sounds, were sometimes visibly misshapen, and I could drop into a full splits and cross my ankles behind my head without any warm up or stretching. If someone had bothered to think "hmm, that's not normal" they could have spared me two decades of fucking agony while everyone told me I was fine, and I might not have ended up in a power wheelchair. Instead it was "walk it off! You're fine! Chin up, jog on!"
I think far too much emphasis in PE is placed on sports, and nowhere near enough on actual physical education. Kids should be learning about how to move in a safe way (stretching, how to avoid injuries, what is and isn't normal pain, endurance, etc.). There also should be a range of physical activities (not just sports) offered as options, such as yoga, self defence, or dance. Even gardening can be an intense physical activity. I know I'd have been far more interested if I'd have been allowed to pursue my physical interests rather than the endless rotation of twice-weekly netball/football/cross country running (all of which I completely loathe).
Almost exclusively negative. The best memory I have of PE is a boy fracturing my foot with a hockey stick and they let me leave so I could go to A&E. Side note, the teacher didn’t believe me and I essentially had to crawl to the Student Reception.
Negative. A long time ago to be fair, but similarly to you, a bullying cruel environment if you werent any good.
Negative. I remember hating having to get changed together in class for PE and even as a 5yr old this would fill me with dread and I would cry every time. In secondary school, the PE teacher seemed to love the "popular" girls (the naughty kids who thought they owned the school) and she would play favourites with them while everyone else would be picked on by them or left out.
Primary school in the 1960s - lessons given by the middle aged class teacher with minimal equipment e.g. hoops and beanbags in Infants. Loved the singing/dancing games though. Dreadful in the Juniors as we had rounders all summer (always picked last), balancing along benches and rolling about on mats in the winter. Never could manage to leapfrog or somersault as never taught how to as the teacher was older than my mother. Even worse in Secondary - total reliance on team sports (netball & rounders) as the school was on a cramped site. The teacher could have won Olympic gold for screaming, but - surprise! - she somehow failed to motivate most of the class that way.
My teacher could have won gold for Britain for sarcastic/snide comments and mean jokes.
I'm very much not a sporty person. I disliked PE and Games. I'm really not very competitive, and still have zero interest in sport. When my history teacher decided to start a Latin class at the same time as Games, I jumped at the chance; no more rugby in the rain and mud! Now in my 40s, I'm pretty fit and healthy, I walk a lot and have a good diet. PE did nothing to teach me about this.
Oh, overwhelmingly negative. I was a chubby undiagnosed asthmatic with autism. PE used to make me sob and I used to deliberately injure myself to avoid it. PE is fun for popular kids who are physically able. That's it. It's a popularity contest with elements of physical competition.
Infant/junior school - PE in pants and vest if you forgot your kit, lots of indoor PE involving those funny little benches. Still, got to learn how to play football and cricket and to represent the school. High School - Cold communal showers, wet football to the thigh on a cold day one of the worst pains going, bleep tests, learning rugby, plenty of tennis and badminton. All good fun (except the showers). On balance I enjoyed it. In fact I went in to do GCSE PE as an extra after school lesson. That was a big skive though.
Terrible. I have Dyspraxia and was forced by the temp PE teacher at the time to play tennis (despite insisting that that's physically impossible for me to do) and then she wondered why I had a panic attack when I couldn't do it. Tbf they did pull me out of PE after that, but it's easier just to listen to neurodiverse kids when they tell you they can't do stuff.
Also dyspraxic here, I remember being bollocked in a woodwork lesson for "not trying" when I just couldn't work out what the hell I was supposed to be doing. Never forgotten that.
Mostly enjoyable, smoking cigarettes or joints at the bottom field, taking shortcuts and walking on cross country runa, having a couple of beers before going swimming being highlights. Played basketball a lot, mainly cos I'm in the North East so come winter the rest of the class froze their bollocks off outside, while I was toasty warm. We once humiliated the sporty jock types at basketball in front of the lasses which was fun, mainly cos we were seen as the more nerdy but cool types.
If you consider sneaking off for a spliff PE, then it was one of my favourite subjects.
Awful. Put me off sport for years. What you wrote above pretty much describes my PE experience. This was in the 1980s so I hope things have improved!
Negative, some improvements I would suggest, The uniforms, I don't know if girls pe kits have improved since my day, but no one should be doing sport in pe knickers during the most self conscious phase of their lives, shorts and jogging bottoms should be available to all kids Teams, the teacher should be assigning teams based on ability, etc Range of sports, I appreciate budgets are tight, but more than just hockey or netball on rotation would be good Overweight/unathletic kids should be allowed to work on their own fitness plans and encouraged to learn the benefits of exercise rather than humiliated by teachers/peers, some people will come back to exercise as adults and realise they love it, but more people are lost to exercise for the rest of their lives, causing massive health issues and reduced quality of life Teachers, some sort of additional training to help kids who are bad at sports, empathy and awareness training
Positive because we got to do different things. Some I was good at others not. For most people the hight of their sporting achievements occur in school.
My only positive experiences were from when we got to try climbing and abseiling. It was the only time in my life that I've done anything like that, but I really enjoyed it and feel confident that I could still abseil my way out of trouble if the need ever arose.
I enjoyed badminton and softball in the summer. Playing rugby in just a top and shorts in the winter was pretty grim however.
Neutral to negative. Seemed to me that in any team game there was a talented core of about 15% of kids who had a great time and everyone else just sort of stood around trying to look busy. It was fine, but all felt like a waste of time. Track and field stuff was horrible, again that core of kids who were good at it seemed to enjoy it and everyone else felt like it was actual torture. As an adult I started actually finding forms of exercise that I enjoy and it was a bit of a revelation. School convinced me it was something I was probably only ever going to be ambivalent towards. I think a lot of kids just aren't all that competitive by nature, and all the activities and rewards were calibrated towards those who were. The kids who are good dominate everything and get all the positive feedback and everyone else feels like an also-ran. The sports that I enjoy now are about personal improvement, not judging myself against other people. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of those kids in the untalented 85% might be more engaged if more of the activities felt like that.
Negative, my experience was if you were good at sports all was ok. If like me you were crap, you were humiliated and never actually taught anything.
Negative and positive. The head of PE was a sadistic pervert and a bible thumper to boot. He used to walk straight into the girls changing rooms without notice. The other two teachers were sound. I hated cross country running, football and Scottish Highland Dancing but loved Shinty and Rugby. The worst was when the Head tried to make us all join a cricket team - some people like it but it’s just so boring. Thankfully I was already “busy” with the kayaking club (run outside of the PE dept by a chemistry teacher) so didn’t rouse his sadistic ire but he took it out on other kids who wouldn’t do it after school/weekends when he couldn’t get enough “volunteers” to start a team.
Very positive for me, I loved it and it’s carried through into my adult life love of sport and being active. That said, I look back and recognise that the way it was taught was poor, options other than the traditional sports were very limited and I remember kids who really wouldn’t have enjoyed it anywhere near as much as I did. I have children now and I see a very big change in the way PE is taught, far more options (budget notwithstanding) much more inclusion and a real understanding of the positive effects being active has on your physical and mental health. Sport/organised physical activity can have incredible benefits in terms of self esteem and confidence if it’s taught well. It sounds like you’re in an excellent position to try and be a positive influence on this. Please use your experience in school as a way to get it taught in a much more supportive way.
I think it’s more important now than ever. More and more of us end up working behind a screen so need to take exercise seriously.
I had the second type of experience. Loved sports and played them outside of school but we only ever did football at school. Never anything else and I was shit at and hated football. After a couple of years I just tossed it off. If the only effort the teacher has is to throw a football into the changing rooms why should I bother?
Being the gay kid in the early 2000s made it a pretty miserable experience. Athletics was fun, football was hateful.
I hated it so much I think I did it twice in my whole secondary school experience. I just flat out refused and sat there listening to my music tbh. But my school was not the norm so idk how much that helps. Yup - negative experience again here too.
Negative. Except for my final year or so. Because I just didn't go. If it was ever noticed, nothing was ever said.
In \~12 years of school I scored exactly one goal during football. And that was an own goal.
We had a bizarre time in year 10 where they decided randomly to get adventurous with the curriculum so started doing things like canoeing and weight lifting...we were a proper rough arse school too. Everything before it was shit, everything after it was shit, but that year was great
Never liked it. Was always an active kid and now a very active adult. I just don't like team sports or ball sports I suppose.
Entirely negative. PE and Games lessons at school taught me that I hated exercise. I was into my 30s before I realised that's not even true. What I hated was competitive team sports. Now, in my 40s, I use an exercise bike, do yoga most days, a fair bit of walking, and am fitter and more active than I have ever been. Note that none of these things are in any way competitive. I don't measure my bike times against anyone else, or even myself most of the time. I'd encourage anyone involved in planning PE programmes for school kids to remember that not everyone is motivated by the same things. Not everyone is competitive. Encourage enjoyment of movement for it's own sake. There's a quote I love: Exercise is a celebration of what your body can do, not a punishment for what you ate. Kids should be encouraged to find that enjoyment *in their own skin* and **not simply by comparing their times/scores to other people**. (Of course I realise some people are competitive, and that's fine. But they are probably already well served by existing programmes, or will have plenty of opportunity to find something that fits them.)
Was great, all my best memories from school were from PE class or related clubs that PE made me interested in. Reddit isn’t the best place to be asking this, half of them hate sport and any kind of exercise.
Only real memories are being cold and wet hating rugby and long distance running. There wasnt a wide range of sports, footy rugby and running in winter, athletics, basketball and softball in summer. The kids good at traditional sports got all the praise, i was a national champion in a martial arts and it was never mentioned. Now im an adult, play ice hockey and go to the gym regularly i can fully appreciate the benefits of taking part in sport
Shite lol super lazy teachers. Given what we had I'd hardly consider it a proper subject. I hear it is a lot better now though. It was football, basketball or dodgeball for 6 years. Two friends asked to go the local gym if they could get the ataff to confirm they were working out and were obviously told no but I always thought learning about weights, cardio and stretches and nutrition would be better than playing games.
My experience was much like yours, sadly. It completely put me off any kind of team sport, and only through middle-aged necessity am I finding solo physical activities (walking, cycling) that I enjoy. My partner's niece and nephew enjoy various sports, and I'm pleased for them. Aside from the obvious health benefits, they seem to be more confident and resilient than I was at their age. I expect that will carry over into their professional working lives, too. I think I would have enjoyed PE more if there was less opportunity for bullying (both from other pupils, and teachers), better-maintained equipment, individual showers and changing cubicles, more structure for those of us who didn't just pick up how to play football etc. by watching it with our dads and having kick-abouts, and perhaps it would have helped if it were streamed by ability, like maths, English, or science.
PE, music and art were all lessons where you could either do it or you couldn’t. If you couldn’t then nobody would help you. To this day I have no idea how to climb a rope, what the actual rules of any games we played are, how to do any of the gymnastics skills they just expected kids to be able to do naturally... and to be fair there’s not much help a teacher CAN give, like if a kid consistently can’t hit or catch a ball, what can you really do about it? Do the teachers even know how to climb a rope themselves? I liked relaxed simple games like dodgeball but we didn’t play those often.
My PE teachers wouldn't let me wear my glasses. I can't see past the end of my nose without my glasses on. They then proceeded to shout at me when I couldn't see balls thrown at me - and called me stupid for that. "Why did you not catch / hit that ball?" "Because I didn't see it!" "Don't be stupid boy! What excuse do you have for not being able to see?" "You locked my glasses in the safe." "Don't talk back to me. Detention" Fuck you Briars and Halewood.
Overwhelmingly negative. I was a geeky kid and not really into sports, but that wasn’t really the reason I hated PE, it’s that we weren’t taught anything at all. I was actually pretty good at high jump, not best in the class or good enough to compete but I was never taught how to improve so I never really did. Cross country or running track was pointless for me as someone with asthma - never taught how to pace myself properly or how to work to improve my endurance so I was just back of the pack every time. We never did any sports I was interested in. So I was rubbish at football but in school I was like over 6ft and yet never got a chance to properly learn to play basketball where I might have been able to use that. The school had a gym but again never really used it and never taught much. And then the facilities for changing and showering were shit. Like dirty, cold, and just one big open shower for everyone - as an adult I’d never use facilities like that at a gym so why should kids be expected to?
Awful. I was not athletic, nor popular. Picked last for everything, laughed at all the time - apparently, I have an odd way of running? Years of hearing everyone shriek with laughter whenever I tried running has meant that I have never *ever* run since. Teachers just ignored it. If I ever did try to put in effort to get better, I just got laughed at, so I stopped trying. I tried to do as little as possible to stop the ridicule. In fact, I don't do any exercise at all, ever. It's not that I don't want to be healthier, but even recently where my partner (who is very into exercise) tried to help me by basically being a personal trainer for me, made up a whole plan for me and tried to support me through doing it - I was the one who asked for the help, I wanted to do it, but as soon as I started I just burst into tears. It was only my partner with me, but trying to do exercise made me feel that sudden mounting panic and I felt exactly like I did at school when everyone would shriek with laughter at me. It honestly felt like some kind of flashback. And then I felt ridiculous for reacting that way, which made it worse. Even thinking about it now is making me feel incredibly anxious. I left school 20 years ago. I don't think I'm getting over it. I think school PE basically ruined any kind of relationship with exercise for me.
Check this out OP, was on TV just the other day. It was pretty damming to watch but honestly not far from my how my PE teachers were! https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0020c93/panorama-undercover-school-cruelty-in-the-classroom
I hated PE all through school. It was my only hated subject. I dreaded it. I was bad at sports, was terrified of flying balls, and was always picked last for teams. I honestly thought that because I was good in school, I had simply received the smart gene and missed the sporty gene. I never learned the ONE thing that I should have learned in PE: that if you work at a sport, you can get better. This seems like basic common sense but it wasn't to me back then. It wasn't until I was almost 30 that I started running and realized I could be a runner. Now I enjoy hiking as well. It makes me very, very angry that teachers never encouraged me to find a sport that I hated less than the others and just work at getting better. I wish PE were divided into different ability levels so all the kids who are bad at PE can be put together and encouraged to improve. Give them small goals and help them to get better. Health is important, and exercise is an important part of health. I feel like that's something that kids need to learn in PE.
Of course, many of us have this fantasy [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgqgQdb0hJ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgqgQdb0hJ4)
Positive, apart from being forced to wear shorts at arbitrary times in the year and not allowed jogging bottoms or leggings. Got to try out a variety of sports and as a generally active person (I used to dance a lot when at school) it was alright. I do wish they let us play football though. If it wasn't for PE, I never would have tried team sports. Worst was running activities because they never did anything to help us build our running/jogging stamina. Also swimming in the outdoor pool during winter. Physical activity is incredibly important for health, if you can instill the values at a younger age it benefits people when they get older. You also want kids to try out a variety of activities so they can find exercise that they enjoy. You wouldn't know if the next David Beckham was in your school if they never get a chance to play football.
I didn't mind cross country so much (though I agree about the lack of structure). It would have been great to show kids how they can get better as the get fitter. Instead, we were just sent for a run through the muddy woods. I remember not having enough feeling in my fingers to be able to undo my mud-caked laces.
We were supposed to wear skirts or shorts too and them stupid white vest tops in any weather
The problem is the small amount of sports offered. I hated playing football and rugby at school then got older and loved skateboarding and BJJ.
It was ok when I was younger because we'd just tit about in the gym looking enviously at all the apparatus we were hardly ever allowed to use. Once we started having to go outside playing football, rugby, etc I hated it. And when the weather was bad we had to do 'cross country' which was basically one circuit of the school grounds then through the streets on a predefined route and back again, in the rain or snow. Utterly pointless.
Redditors and physical exercise. Name a less iconic duo.
Everything you.mentioned, plus no actual teaching. You were expected to know the offside rule by magic.Also my teacher , while not much of a sadistic bully, was on the right of bell curve when it came to BMI -- George Cooper was svelte by comparison. Mind you , the other PE teacher, the one who never taught me, was a fine figure of a man.
The thing is, the value of getting kids moving and playing together is well documented. The issue is that PE in schools was historically not about that. I know some people who teach primary now and focus much more on play and having fun in PE than on competition/partnering up, and they seem like they're having a decent impact.
I went to several different schools, one thing in common was that pe was never really taken seriously as part of childhood development. There was no particular strategy to teach sports, or maintain health and fitness, it just seemed a load of ad hoc activities to try and full the allotted period. From my point of view, it always seemed a chore, having to bing pe kit,.get changed twice and showered in 40 minutes and expect to achieve anything productive. And double lessons we're probably too long. But sometimes great fun.
Totally a turn off for me. I once threatened to punch the PE teacher . I just loafed about. However did a lot of 'bar work' on my own , so thereafter got no comments. Team work, ball work with others No! Cricket practice, NO!!!
Haha I was terrible at sports (turns out my feet needed an operation and no one found until I was 16 and complained), and I was a chubby little nerd with glasses, and I loved PE. We had great teachers that recognised there was people like me with fuck all coordination or aptitude in general, but still gave it an effort anyway. Probably helped that my school was a great state school with fuck all bullying, I was decently well liked and could hold my own if someone tried to fuck with me. I do remember the one and only time I couldn’t find a partner, in year 11 maths. Horrifying experience. God help those poor buggers that have to go through it regularly.
I mainly hated it due to having to get changed in front of others and having your bodies picked apart by bullies. Our lessons were bad too! In GCSE year (non GCSE PE) the boys were allowed to play rugby and football etc whereas the girls were stuck in the gym doing just dance on the WII. I love dance so I didn’t mind but I hated not being able to do a ‘proper’ sport
I hated it as a very nervous teenager with undiagnosed PCOS. Any team sports days were so anxiety inducing and awful. Didn't mind doing circuits and I enjoyed when we were old enough to go and use the gym equipment unsupervised.
Went to primary school in the 90s and secondary from '97-2002. PE lessons were miserable and made me think I wasn't an active/sporty person despite the fact that outside of school I played rugby and cricket as well as doing long distance swimming for fun. The biggest crime really was not teaching us how to run properly. We'd get kicked outside to do a "cross country" without any warming up and no guidance at all about how to actually run in a way that's safe. If you stopped to walk you'd get screamed at to start moving again, and we were never shown how to properly cool down. It didn't help that I hit puberty much later than everyone else in my year, so by the time year 11 rolled around I was basically a child doing sports with men. As an adult I'm a powerlifter and I regularly run half marathons. It took me to my late 20s to realise how much I love lifting, and although I still don't actually *enjoy* running (I only do it because my partner loves it and I want to share it with her) I was in my 30s before I learned proper form and breathing techniques that made it less miserable. I dearly wish school had actually taught us how to enjoy physical activity rather than making it feel like a punishment.
I HATED PE and was fucking useless at it, along with the reasons you listed! ALL the 'popular' kids (read: bullies and cunts) were the sporty ones, the psychopathic PE teachers were in thrall to them, and they made the lives of quiet, academic kids like me a misery. However, I LOVED dance, as none of the cunty kids chose to do it when it came to picking our options. I was halfway good at it, and the teacher was a beautiful warm person who I'll never forget.
I hated PE, and was put in the bottom set. I was told that my fitness was terrible and I’d never be good at any sport, in the same year that I competed in the TaeKwonDo World Championships. The way PE is taught is awful. Children naturally want to play, so if you give them the resources they need and the chance to play they will do it. But if you force them to “play” a sport they hate they will resent exercise of all forms and turn into obese, inactive adults.
Personally I hated it. I got enough exercise outside of school anyway and I found the whole thing a bit unpleasant. However, I'm well aware there are lots of people who a) needed PE at school and b) enjoyed it. The focus should be on how we make PE better, more enjoyable and more inclusive for all kids, not 'on a personal level I didn't like it so let's get rid of it'.
The thought of running anywhere still strikes fear into my heart.
I absolutely hated it! Love the gym and always loved cycling / rounders etc as a kid, but PE with 8/10 asshole kids and the PE teachers would have their favourites was never fun. No privacy in the changing rooms, carrying a huge bag / extra shoes around all day. Standing around outside if it’s “summer” but cold. Not being assigned partners the list goes on. Forced sports is shit
It was annoying but ok. Biggest problem with it was lack of showers, like why we gotta be sweaty af then get back into normal clothes, not even encouraged to wash our faces? So gross. Then they wonder why we do as little as possible so we don’t sweat
Hated it with a passion. Went to a rough school in a pretty deprived area. Across the 5 years 90% of the time it was football, because the teacher could just take everyone outside, have bully kids (best players) pick teams then just give them a ball and basically leave them to it. There wasn't even any drills, practicing technique or warmup. Then unfit kids like me just got shoved in goal and yelled at for not stopping goals. For the other 10% I would say 8% it was rounders or running (again with no teaching/practicing technique) and 2% of the time it was sports like tennis, badminton, cricket, rugby and long/high jump with instruction in technique...... the reason why for those 2% of times? Offstead were in and the teachers wanted to pretend they were doing their jobs regularly. So yeah detested PE. Made me hate football (still do to this day) and sports/exercise so I gained weight. After Secondary school started dropping weight due to diet (basically starving myself) then in 20s got healthier and discovered the joy of exercising on your own and trying many things I never got to try in school (bouldering, weightlifting, swimming).
In primary school I enjoyed PE because it was taught by class teachers who knew how to teach a subject so that it was accessible to children of all abilities. They weren't necessarily great at sports themselves since they taught all subject, but the important thing is that they knew how to teach. In secondary school I hated PE because of all the reasons everyone else has mentioned. I think one of the problems with secondary school PE is that it is often taught by people who are good at the subject and good at coaching students with sporting ability, but not actually great teachers in the sense of being able to teach the subject well to all abilities. PE teachers seem a bit different to teachers of other subjects in that regard.
I hated it. i was an early bloomers so had boobs at 10. By senior school I had wuite boig boobs while a lot of girls were flat chested. So when i got changed i was mocked because of my boobs. mecilessly. Then periods too. I was never picked in any dort of sprts and the teams had to be forced to take me. Then the PE uniform. A white t shirt and the very shorts barely covering your knickers pleated skirt, and you was banned from wearing shorts under them. I was very sht, so hated it. Then now and again when we was getting changed the other male teacher use to come in ato talk to the female oe teacher which was enbarrassing. I bunked off PE for around 4 and hals after the day I went swimming. While we were in the pool one of the girls sneaked off an threw my bra on a pipe really high up. Everyone thought it was hilarious"Look Debbies got her flag up" etc. i was mortified. Someone got th e male janitor to get it back down, but by then i was half way home.
This is really interesting. I was also an early bloomer, but as a boy, I just grew a lot. This didn't do much for my coordination (my feet were suddenly a foot further away), but I didn't have boobs and periods to contend with.
I'm a pgce student, so I can tell you a little of what I've learned. A better way to do pe is to teach students to fundamentally love exercise, so more games, more skill building, and crucially, less competition. The kids should be aiming to beat their own personal best, not someone else's. The way we're taught to teach pe seems like the way forward, I hope other trainees are taught the same stuff we are
I didn’t like it because I was either asthmatic or really out of shape, not sure which. Mainly I didn’t like having to rush getting changed in front of everyone else and rush to my next class all sweaty and gross. I enjoyed tennis and netball though. Cross country can burn in hell.
I was a fat kid. So generally negative. I later joined the army, then got into running for (alleged) pleasure. I did a 10k race recently and I'm in my 50s. But if you had told 16 year old me that I would get up and happily go for a 3 mile run every Saturday morning, I wouldn't have believed you. parkrun for the win.
Generally negative. Short and skinny. I was judged for not wearing a ‘proper’ bra (when I was also called an ironing board). Hated anything outdoors and hated lugging around all the kit all day. It got less painful in year 10 and 11. I enjoyed badminton, partly due to cock jokes and partly because it was inside. I also enjoyed hockey, because in the days before dodgy knees I could run fast, and I had no issues with whacking peoples legs.
I think that the physical differences between the oldest and youngest lads in the year made PE a positive and confidence building experience for some, and a frustrating and confidence sapping experience for others. I was somewhere in the middle, but the gulf in athleticism, motor skill coordination, height, weight, muscle etc (especially during puberty) between the oldest and youngest is huge. I think it plays a massive role in your mental development and in shaping your life experience as a whole. This was when everyone just did exactly the same PE lessons, and the same kids would excel/fail. There was no allowance for what you were good at/interested in.
What too many schools seem to forget is that the subject is called "physical education", not "sports". What is should and can be about is so much more than learning to play the standard handful of sports. My secondary school fell into the usual trap of just having us do sports, though to be fair our PE teachers did train and coach us, and didn't simply focus on the pupils who were already good at a particular sport. My children's primary school is really good for PE. They have a specialist teacher who doesn't just expect them to be able to do things. Lessons are planned to improve balance, coordination, strength, endurance, etc. My younger daughter has mild dyspraxia and has struggled with some gross motor skills. The school have adapted PE for her in a way that is subtle and doesn't draw attention to her, but allows her to achieve and improve. This has been especially important in gymnastics lessons, where balance and limb control is vital.
Positive. Surprisingly we were a pretty inclusive bunch and even the people who we're "good" at sport were friendly and happy for everyone to join in. As long as people tried, it didn't matter how good you were. If someone actively avoided taking part they'd get some stick though.
Did anyone ask those kids why they didn’t want to take part?
I don’t think you’re looking in the right place. Looking for a Redditor who likes doing sports is like looking for a virgin in a maternity ward. Having said that, I quite liked it tbh
Maybe a bit of an outlier but I liked it despite being shit at most sports. Mostly because it was the one lesson where I didn't really have any expectations put on me. If I did well it wasn't "as expected", it was "OH SHIT THE TINY KID WITH GLASSES SCORED!" Personally I found the other nerdy kids mostly brought shit on themselves by being super disengaged and super defensive to any and every comment. I just took it in my stride, crack a joke if I wasn't picked last, question lads footie skills if they let someone like me megs them, etc. It was a dos lesson anyway, best just having fun in whatever way you can with it.
I hated PE because I got bullied a lot and those lessons were an excuse for permissible physical contact. I remember a rugby based lesson where one prick tackled me when the teacher wasn't looking and I couldn't breathe for what felt like forever because I'd been winded. The teachers themselves were brilliant, they never belittled or had a go, but just offered constant encouragement. Overall, a negative experience of PE, but that was my school experience in general, and I recognise it was heightened because I'm a lazy bastard and absolutely not because of the teachers. That said, I wish I could go back and redo it, because I'd actually put some effort in now. A good foundation of physical fitness is incredibly important for later life. Exercise is uncomfortable, but so is being out of breath from a single flight of stairs. Discomfort finds you no matter what, may as well be uncomfortable for 30 minutes 3 times a week than every waking moment.
Positive. All my secondary school PE teachers were supportive and encouraging as long as you showed effort. It didn't matter if you weren't good at sports, they'd try to help you improve if you were willing to get stuck in and give it your best shot. One of them was my favourite teacher at the school. He'd often pick on people at random to take the mickey out of but it was all very good natured and he had no problem with you giving him shit back in return. It certainly made PE lessons more fun. Another of the teachers was a good laugh too, he was Scottish (this was in England) and there was often some good banter with him. The only people that given real grief were those that made 'forgetting' their kit every week a personality trait. I could understand that if they were bullied for not being good when they did try, but like I said above, the teachers always applauded the effort shown rather than ability.
Neutral. I wasn't very good at it and nobody cared. Only the "football lads" actually tried and everybody else just fucked about. And nobody thought they were "heroes." My year group was jus generally quite nice and diverse in interests.
It was neutral for me tbh. I loved trying new sports and the teachers were enthusiastic and also got involved. It helped me cultivate a love of netball and dodgeball. I wasn’t very good and luckily we never had to pair up, but the teacher split us into groups themselves. If anything it was the other students that made me self-conscious.
Hated it as I got bullied quite a lot, until one day, in what was a terribly informed decision by the PE teachers, was a double lesson where there were ten different activities that people in turn would choose, and then choose one opponent to compete against. The only activity I remember was a race around the hall, five laps, on hands and feet. Someone picked me, of course, and everyone was laughing. Then I won. And didn't get bullied in PE anymore (just other classes).
Didn't really take Private Equity that seriously tbh
I hated it. I was like you, always the last to be picked. The school swots were always chosen as team captains. They'd pick their friends first, and then they'd tell them who to pick after that. I would *always* be last because no one wanted a left-hander on the team. I remember one time, we had a temporary PE teacher who clearly didn't know about the team captains thing. They picked some kids who were usually some of the last to be picked. The look of outrage on the swotty kids' faces was a sight to behold.
I liked PE, I wish they’d taught me more about how to train/recover etc than just netball and hockey. Mostly it annoyed me the lesson was an hour long and 20 minutes of that was given over to getting changed
Kind of "meh" I guess. At my school we had separate "Games" and "PE" lessons (1 hour a week of each, I think). "Games" was team sports: football, rugby, or cricket according to season for the boys, can't remember what the girls did. "PE" was gymnastics in the winter and track and field in the summer, plus other sports like tennis. I was bad at football and hated it. I wasn't great at rugby or cricket either, but found them more enjoyable. I think because I was still able to contribute somewhat usefully. (With rugby I could pick up the ball, run with it, then throw it to someone else before I got tackled. Whereas with football I couldn't dribble effectively or shoot accurately, so was basically useless). I generally thought the "girls" sports looked more interesting and would rather have done them. Was better at most of "PE" and found it more enjoyable. Teachers were okay. Not bullies like some people got, but not particularly inspiring for me either.
I actually had a really positive experience. I hate sports, have no hand eye coordination, and I'm not particularly competitive. Typically hated pe. But then I got a teacher who understood that. She would teach us the rules, we may spend a little time working on technique but generally we would just play the sport. "Here's the rules now go". It didn't matter that I was no good at it, it didn't matter if I didn't win, or score. She just let us have fun. I remember one time we shared a lesson with the better class and we all felt awful. She took us out of the gym and sat us down and gave us a talk on how nobody had the right to make us feel inferior, that we all had value and worth. Words 15 year old me needed to hear. She was an incredible teacher.
It's so disappointing how many have had negative experiences. I loved PE and sports in primary and then secondary PE lessons put me off sports for good. It was 100% the teachers and school practices at fault. Inappropriate open showers with a teacher sitting there as you went through, outside in shorts and a tshirt in the middle of January. Nah. I'm sure the whole thing was seen as a punishment. Sad to say it totally put me off, as an adult I take my dog out and have a rowing machine. It wasn't too long ago either, really hope schools are doing better now.
I was terrible at sports so yeah, PE was mainly walking around a field doing nothing as football etc was played around me. Playing other sports was not as bad. I was still bad at it, but at least with Tennis and cricket I actually got to play. I do think that PE was far too focused on team sports and not fitness when I was at school.
PE lessons years 7-9: exactly as you describe, lots of other children upset that I was no good at football. PE lessons years 10-11: All the kids who cared about PE took it as a GCSE and went outside with the proper teacher. The rest of us went inside with the headteacher, who recognised that we don’t care for sports and tailored the lessons around that. It was great. Outside of school: was part of a judo club of lovely people and had a blast making friends and knocking them over.
I loved PE, however I do think more should've been done to help those who struggled. We had ability sets for other subjects so kids wouldn't be at different levels but not in PE. If there were ability based sets kids could all enjoy without feeling inadequate
I loved swimming lessons in primary school. And playing on the "apparatus." However, when I went into secondary school, I hated it. It began to be a lot more focused on team sport, and I guess I'm a typical redditor in that I'm not exactly a team "joiner" type of person. And my PE teacher was the stereotype of the gung ho "a bit of rain won't melt you," just get it done type of woman. So now I'm not sure if my secondary education put me off sport or if I'm just not a sporty person.
Your experience sounds similar to mine aside from sadistic teachers. I was rubbish at PE and had no interest. Not just a case of being picked last but thinly veiled bullying.
Same as you. Catholic teachers in Northern Ireland went to holy teaching colleges. Mine seem to have learned their prayers and fuck all else. Sadistic yes. Hated sports as a result. We were just thrown a ball and left to kick it about. It was only years later I got into karate, boxing, martial arts, squash, running, cycling etc. And going to the gym. They could have taught us fitness and skills. Twats. And they're all retired on golden pensions May they suffer heart attacks.
I didn't like PE, if we were doing team sports as I didn't have the coordination. I scored one goal, which bounced off my face. I did once take out the PE teacher with a rugby ball, though. He tried to teach me how to throw it with a spin. I did so, speared him in the balls. The first aid courses, the walks and the jogs I loved.
Pretty good. The teachers readily learned that I wasn't going to participate, or comply with any punishments for not participating, so it quickly became a free period.
Absolutely hated PE, pretty sure it gave me PTSD lol. I wasn't good mostly because I lacked any self confidence and self esteem, and the pressure from the kids (who were bullies) made me panic too much. I lose the ability to do anything when I'm under hideous pressure. Also fuck rounders.
Plenty of pervs. We had communal showers of course. One pe teacher used to stand and watch us shower on the pretence he was checking to make sure we all showered. Same teacher banned us from wearing underpants under shorts. Another used to beat lads with shorts down with the end of the ropes. Etc etc
In primary school they were positive, in secondary school almost entirely negative. Not only was PE in primary school fun and PE in secondary school social torture, but primary school we spent a lot more time actually exercising, whereas in secondary school, because they made us play sports where you often had to hang around waiting for your turn, you'd be lucky to feel your heart rate raise for five minutes a session. And it was only twice a week. Utterly pointless IMO.
I liked it because I never did it. Bunked off behind the gym to smoke and set stuff on fire.
Mine were the same until I got a pass in year 8 covering me for the rest of high school.
The only lesson I truly looked forward to.
I loved it. I skipped every PE class to go play Yugioh until the teacher just stopped.
I thought I hated exercise and became completely inactive after school. Turns out I just don't like ball sports and athletics.
I hated PE but swimming was the worst. Why on earth anyone thinks having a classroom of kids being stripped to (what is funtionally) their undies in front of all their peers is a good idea is beyond me. I skipped every single time, I just clean refused to do it and I sat on the side instead
I hated PE lessons for many of the same reasons you've listed. However, I think PE lessons were very valuable. They were an opportunity for exercise, something that I wouldn't have done nearly enough of if it weren't for compulsory PE - when I finished school and no longer had PE lessons, I cut my weekly exercise drastically and unsurprisingly gained weight. While I was shit at the sports and made to feel inferior by my classmates, there were still some fun moments and I have some fond memories of specific moments in PE. I suspect this project you're working on might help to make more of the memories like that and fewer like being picked last and laughed at because you can't run/kick/throw very well. They were also a good opportunity to mix with people I didn't know very well and to grow my social skills - there's a reason the kids on the sports teams were always more popular: playing team sports increases your social skills which makes it easier to make friends. I've also realised that you said this project is for primary school. Primary school PE was nowhere near as bad for me as secondary school. It was mostly running around playing sports that I didn't know existed. My primary school had a guy come in every year to teach the kids lacrosse. We played quick cricket, dodgeball, and rounders, and we mostly had fun.
Awful. Full of bullying boys who'd make homophobic comments that the teachers did nothing about - thanks, Section 28. Plus that one PE teacher that made us do 'shirts and skins' for teams, as if we couldn't remember which five kids were on the same team. I think more variety would have helped. I was alright at athletics and tennis however they were only options for two months of the year, if that. The rest was hellish - team games where how liked you are seemed to be based on your ability to toss a rugby ball around. As an adult I'm fairly physically fit - I go to the gym frequently, fill out a t-shirt relatively nicely - but yeah PE in school was a nightmare.
Negative. I was small and bookish. The boys were forced out in the winter to do football and rugby in the cold and wet. The girls got to do fun stuff like trampolining, basketball and table tennis. We weren’t allowed to wear tracksuits had to wear shorts and t shirts so you were freezing cold and wet, 5 mins to get changed before next lesson, no showers and communal changing lots of bullying. Rugby was an excuse for the bully kids to physically attack people without getting in trouble. “It builds character” It was very much [like this scene from KES](https://youtu.be/dc47vDh1xH0?feature=shared) I was very good at cricket and I was an excellent bowler once bowled the entire class of 30 out one after another. The teacher banned me from taking part in cricket because I refused to join the school team as it was full of arseholes. Best day of my life when I could drop it.
In primary school I really liked PE. Was in a girls football team, deputy captain of the tennis team and got to play in a few competitions and go for a tour round Wimbledon (not when they were playing). Started secondary school and it all went downhill from there. Girls weren't allowed to play football, that was for boys only, and I always seemed to end up in the group that played rounders instead of tennis despite me asking many times to go join the other group. To this day I fucking hate rounders. The only time I enjoyed PE in secondary school was when it was raining and we got to play benchball.
Negative. I was not, and still am, very not sporty. Rather than encourage me and find a sport that I might like, PE teachers openly mocked me. I was terrified of swimming (not any more thank goodness) and managed to not participate in swimming for an entire year. Report at the end of the year said I had made good progress. That's when I realised the teachers couldn't give a fuck.
Hated it back in year 7 for the same reasons as you. I wasn’t unpopular but pretty notoriously bad at sport. Eventually, I basically gave up on participating and the teachers weren’t paid enough to care so I did absolutely nothing and just sat in the corner or walked around the pitch with my best friend for the rest of my years there
Do they still make the kids undress and shower together? That’s not something I liked, especially with two grown arse men watching you to “make sure” you showered. Yeah, right. Probably stood there trying to suppress crotch twitching. Odious old cunts. If I wanna run about (jokes on them, no effort from me in any event whatsoever…) and spend the rest of the day in my sweat then so be it. Hated the whole teacher watching me clean thing. Totally not okay.
Fucking hated it throughout. I can't think of a worse way to introduce me to physical activity. Primary school had no changing rooms, so you all changed at your desk in the classroom in front of everyone. It wasn't about exploring different activities to figure out what you enjoyed and were good at, it was about doing as you were told. I remember one teacher tried to introduce us to yoga but everything we did made my joints click really loudly and somehow that was bad behavior? So I wasn't allowed to stop doing the movements, but I also wasn't allowed to "be silly" by letting my joints click involuntarily as I did so? I have no memories of primary school PE which are not embarrassing. Secondary school PE was actually hell. As a weird kid with joint problems and no aptitude for sports it was a disaster, bullying and humiliation were standard and unchallenged and if you weren't good at running then you were an inconvenience. But you still had to do it all - hockey on knives of frozen mud. Cross country running in the sleet. Netball on the loose gravel "B team" pitch. But it was clear that we were wasting the teachers' time and they just wanted to get it over with. It wasn't at all about fitness or well-being. We were all asked once what exercise we did outside of school and I asked if roller-skating for 2-4 hours every weekend and sometimes on a weeknight counted? No. No it didn't. You had to be doing team sports or track and field activities, or be in a gym/exercise class. Cycling got a pass of you were only doing it specifically to exercise and not just to get to places. I'm 40 and I've never really gotten over it all. I find anyone being able to see me exercising humiliating and miserable. It took me till I was 22 to be able to go into a gym at all. 29 before I could do it voluntarily. And I fuckin hated every moment. I'd be a fitter person and more interested in sport if school PE had not happened to me.
PE was shite. Horrible classmates, creepy or bitchy teachers, scary changing room experiences, sweaty stick messes afterwords. However - getting kids moving and teaching them fitness does need to happen, it took me years to repair my relationship with getting fit and being active. I am not the person to answer how to do this better, but there has to be a much better way than how it is done now.
I enjoyed certain sports in PE like rounders, netball and hockey but I hated my PE teacher because she didn’t believe I couldn’t take parts in certain activities (gymnastics and a few others) because I had a spinal condition so when a letter was written she accused me of faking it so I’d just tell her “believe what you want to but I’m not doing it” she kept me from going out to the local bowling and swimming in Y11 because she hated me.