The positive effects of physical activity for children and young people are well documented, with exercise boosting not only physical health, but also having a positive effect on mental wellbeing. In addition, taking part in sport can lead to a feeling of achievement and the ability to learn how to be both a leader and a follower, enabling the participant to experience fun and friendship as part of a team. Those of you who love sport will no doubt be fully in agreement with these words, and be keen believers in the benefits of exercise for all young people.
However, are these words always true? Is compulsory PE always a highlight of the week for every child?
Imagine the following scenario. In an English lesson, a group activity is about to take place. The cleverest two children are called to the front of the class, and they are told to pick their teams for a spelling challenge. One by one, the children are chosen, cleverest first. At the very end, there are two children left standing there, cringing with embarrassment, clearly seeing their place in the pecking order as the ones that no one wants in their team. Maybe these students have English as an additional language, or maybe they have special needs. No one knows or really cares. Who is going to be picked next, and who will suffer the burning shame of being the very last one to be chosen? As the activity progresses, the unwanted students, having been absorbed by an unwilling group, get jeered for “letting the side down” every time they make a mistake. They can’t wait until they are 16, after which they will never have to pick up a book again.
If you are reading this feeling assured that such a scenario would never occur in our schools, you are absolutely correct. Quite rightly, it would be seen as an abomination for a teacher to do such a thing in an academic lesson. Why then, to this day, are similar scenarios still taking place within PE lessons? Why is it still seen as being OK to shame those who are less able within the field of sport, perhaps because they have the “wrong” body type or a special need such as Dyspraxia or Autism, when we would never do this in an academic subject?
As someone who was academic and not sporty at all, I can still remember the painful experience of being one of the ones who was left out, and it led me to shy away from all forms of sport for years. Is that really what we want for our young people? Would we really see it as being OK for a child to be laughed at for being a poor reader, and for that child to grow up being anxious about reading for years afterwards? If not, then we shouldn’t allow the mismanagement of school sports to have this effect.
At EIC, we have a totally different approach to exercise. Our GCSE students all have a weekly Games session on a Friday afternoon. As I have explained in earlier blogs, many of our students have special needs, and we have a significant number who have joined us after being bullied in their previous schools. Therefore, we have a gentle, inclusive approach. The students will go to Walpole Park or a local sports centre with James, the Head of GCSE, and Catherine, one of our tutors. Both of these teachers are gentle and sensitive, and both are fully aligned with our ethos of encouragement rather than force.
When they arrive at the park, the students go into different groups. Some of our students want to play football or rounders, but others just enjoy a walk around the park. In schools where students are forced to play team games, many students start to passively refuse by tactics such as declaring that they have a weekly medical appointment or by habitually “forgetting” their kit. At EIC there is no reason to refuse Games as there is no stress involved. Therefore, all of our students can enjoy taking part and the benefits of exercise in the fresh air. And, perhaps most importantly, none of our students are given the sort of negative experience which leads them to shy away from exercise in the future. Sometimes one of our walkers will give a team game a go, and this is something we really encourage. Any jeering at someone who misses the ball is treated just the same as jeering at someone less able in an academic lesson would be. Others may come to sport later in life. Everyone is an individual, and our choice-based approach works very well in making our students feel valued for who they are.
Some other schools also run equally enlightened programmes, for example dividing the class into groups so that beginners can learn together, or offering a choice of activities. However, in too many cases, PE lessons are still a part of the curriculum where inclusivity is not really considered. This needs to change.