Genesis

June 2011, and home come my children's school reports.  All pretty good...except one section in my son's report:

"Physical Education

[He] enjoys this subject but often sees it as a time to realease some pent up energy and will rush around without listening to the focus of the task in hand.  He is capable of some coordinated movements when reminded"

My son is 6.  If, in the two hours of "PE" he gets in school (and having observed PE as a school governor, I can confidently say that once the kids have all got changed, been shepherded to wherever PE is to take place, got the equipment out and all the other messing around, actual activity is around 30 mins at best), he can't release some pent up energy then there's something very wrong.

From what I've seen of these PE lessons, very little effort is made to engage children in meaningful physical activity - much of it is pedestrian and time spent listening to instructions from teachers who, frankly, have little knowledge or competence in physical education (despite what teacher training coleges may have them believe!)

I must make it clear at this point that my criticisms here are not aimed at teachers individually or in general, rather, the system that limits and confines PE in schools and allows the woeful standards of delivery.  If I am to level criticism across the teaching population in general it is that individually, they all have a choice - the choice to be informed, get the right training and to be passionate about the physical education of children as well as the academic.  Many have not.  Some have, and I'll explore this more as the blog evolves - there are some teachers out there who do care, but are hamstrung by curricula and Headteachers who lack the courage to challenge the demands of the education authorities.

And "coordinated movements"?!!  Coordinated by what standards?  Without wishing to sound like the archetypal defensive parent, my son is naturally physically gifted.  Pretty much any sport he tries he can pick up with relative ease.  Currently (by his own choice) he practices Judo, Rugby and loves Archery when he gets the chance (at his Grandad's).  He loves to swim, cycle, run and generally be everything that an exuberant 6 year old boy should be.

His sister, too, loves to run, does Judo, Ju-Jitsu and gets plenty of exercise playing with friends at Rainbows and also loves to swim.  Her report reads great, but this is not down to superior ability (they are both equally capable and have very different interests and abilities in different ways), rather, it is more that her personality is better disposed to order and instruction - playing the school "game".

This has saddened me and angered me in equal measure - PE in primary schools seems to have been gradually eroded by successive governments' obsessions with academic standards, league table, exam results, all the while putting repsonsibility for physical education in the hands of ill-equipped and often times disinterested teachers.  This, against a background of risng childhood obesity, type II diabetes, a growing mental health crisis (with clear links to physical wellbeing) and falling rates of child involvement in physical and sporting activities.  There's something very wrong with this picture.

In this blog, and through Facebook, I hope to be able to present information., views and research to drive a new agenda for physical education in England's primary schools.  At this point in time, I've no idea what I'll achieve or where this will be go, but it will be interesting finding out.

It's time to challenge the status quo.  Time for our kids to thrive.